A garden which turned sustainable storage into an artform has won gold at the Ideal Home Show.
Capel Manor College’s Box Clever Garden, a patio garden made up of interchangeable cells of paving and planting, scooped the gold award after being judged top of the crop of six entries from colleges across the country.
The team of six Garden Design foundation degree students, who include a former Buckingham Palace chef and a business consultant, were presented with a trophy by Prince Charles who named them ‘Young Garden Designers of the Year ‘.
The team were also given a cheque for £1,000 which will be shared by students and the college.
The Prince’s charity, Prince’s Trust for the Built Environment, helped to judge the design and devised the brief, which was for a 5 x 4.5 metre plot which used sustainable materials and created a haven for wildlife.
Angela Dixon, former city risk manager and member of the winning student team, said: “We are all over the moon, we were all on tenterhooks for ages and then we all got very excited and jumped up and down – as much as mature students do. This is going to be great for all our careers and it has inspired some of the students to sign up to do solo competitions like Hampton Court as well.”
Kim Page, Deputy Head of Garden Design at Capel Manor, which is based in Enfield, said: “We feel as if we’ve won the world cup. Everyone is absolutely delighted. We were advised that this idea has commercial potential so now the students are interested in exploring this. Everyone was really taken with the idea of flexibility.”
Diarmuid Gavin, judge and ambassador of the Ideal Home Show said: “Innovative, practical, green and beautifully-built were the ingredients needed for the gold award and Capel Manor’s Box Clever had it all.
“We wanted to find and celebrate the best new young talent in the country and give them a public platform to showcase their talent and earn recognition.
“Working with the Prince’s Foundation has been fantastic – they are constantly evolving, and expert at dealing with natural products in their work. They are hugely interesting and inspiring.”
The design, which flanks the exhibition entrance at Earl’s Court, centres on a timber framed storage area. The frame, made of spruce ply, also incorporates a fold-down dining table, a rainwater collector, a timber wormery, bird box and re-cycling units.
The garden features a range of habitats to promote biodiversity, with a water feature, mahonia and wallflowers for early spring nectar sources, flowering culinary herbs, bamboo, dogwood, and holly and ivy to give all year round interest.
The silver award went to Bridgwater College, in Somerset, for their Lilypad garden, while bronze went to Essex-based Writtle College for their Last Night’s Pizza garden.
With 250,000 visitors over three weeks, the Ideal Home Show is the world’s largest home show. It was launched by the advertising department of the Daily Mail in 1908. It’s reputation as launchpad for the finest innovations, materials and designs from across the empire have ensured its popularity with royalty.
Tom Petherick, ambassador for the Prince’s Foundation and garden designer, who helped devise the competition brief, said: “It is great to see the show’s connection with the garden revisiting a time when British horticulture was at an all time high about a hundred years ago.”
