TV gardener going back to school at Hampton Court

TV gardener and designer Chris Beardshaw is going back to school at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (3-8 July) with a show garden designed to enrich learning experiences for children of all ages.

RHS Gold Medal-winner Chris will be hoping for a gold star and to go one better than his RHS Silver-Gilt winning garden at the Hampton Court show in 2004. This year’s ‘The Growing Schools Garden – learning outside the classroom’, designed for Learning Through Landscapes and sponsored by the DfES, represents a stylised modern school environment for children and young people of mixed abilities and demonstrates a range of opportunities such as fostering creativity, learning about growing food, improving health and well-being outdoors, enhancing play and social development and creating a sense of culture, heritage and belonging through choice of plants and features.

A number of local schools have been commissioned to create some of the artworks and features for Chris’s show garden. A proportion of the plant material, including a mix of native and exotic annuals and biennials, trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are also being grown by the participating schools. The planting reflects the variety of uses in the botanical world, including culinary plants, medicinal plants, and plants used in manufacture and industry, alongside plants to encourage wildlife, sensory plants and plants to reflect personal, local and international heritage.

Mandy Almond, Show Manager for the RHS, said, “Chris Beardshaw is a real favourite at the RHS flower shows and we are looking forward to seeing his design realised at the show. The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show hosts exhibitors from across the UK, and the world, but remains rich in local design talent and expertise so I am delighted that local schools are also involved in this garden and will help add a young person’s touch to Chris’s garden design!”

Elsewhere in the show, two local schools, Alton Infant School and Sheddington Primary School, will be creating small gardens. Alton pupils have designed ‘Learning to look after our world’, a microcosm of their own school grounds which demonstrates conservation, recycling, organic gardening and wildlife habitats. ‘The Willow Pattern Plot’, by pupils at Sheddington Primary School, celebrates the school’s twentieth ‘China’ anniversary using the Chinese love story ‘Willow Pattern’ as the inspiration point.

For tickets to the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show (3-8 July) call 0870 247 1223 or book online at www.rhs.org.uk/flowershows. 3-4 July are reserved for RHS members and their guests, with all welcome 5-8 July.