As harrogate based garden designers and landscapers we designed and constructed a garden for the 2011 harrogate autumn flower show. The theme for our garden at the Harrogate Autumn Flower Show 2011 was "Punk!". Re-using throw-away items such as beer cans, wine bottles and baked bean tins, we created a loud, daring and colourful addition to this years show!

Over 400 beer cans were painted and decorated to create bold and colourful planters, a living wall created by using around 200 drinks cans - all planted up with seasonal plants, recreated the legendary punk artwork by Jamie Reid, "Never trust a punk" giving it a humourous twist.

A water feature created using tin cans and a border edging of wine bottles showed what you  can do with a bit of imagination, the planting featured tall fiery crocosmia's, spiky phormiums, and of course some striking scarlet hollyhocks!

Achieving Gold award again was a great commendation for our efforts, here is the story in pictures:

The garden finished in its full glory:

The Harrogate Spring Flower Show 2011 saw the show enter its centenary year, to help celebrate this, the show organisers invited local garden designers and landscapers to enter a show garden as part of the show attractions.

The theme was sustainability, and was centered on the charities and causes that appeal to the show's patron, HRH The Prince of Wales.

Here is the story of our show garden project:

We chose to look at water sustainability, with WaterAid being one the Prince's main charities. Inspired by an episode of "One foot in the grave" where Victor Meldrew has a plant delivered to his house whilst he is out, telling them to leave it in the downstairs toilet. He comes home to find the plant has been delivered and the instructions followed literally.....the plant is actually in the toilet pan, with soil and everything!

This led to our idea to install a full bathroom suite in the garden, each its own working water feature, including a flushing toilet! Demonstrating the need to conserve water, each feature recycled water which was used throughout the entire garden. The majority of our materials and features were from reclaimed or recycled sources.

Day 1: The build begins, we arrive on site and find our plot marked out. We begin to construct the base for our garden.

 Up at the crack of dawn, as the preparation for our show garden marches on. Everybody is hard at work as the garden begins to take shape.

The last few days as we get on with planting and making sure everthing works before the judges arrive.

 The final day, judging begins...

GOLD!!.....We are awarded Gold for our show garden "The Call of Nature"

Here some pictures of the finished garden

At the 2011 Harrogate Spring Flower Show we designed and constructed a show garden which received a gold award and saw us receiving a lot of press attention including being featured on tv in calander news. Our garden "The Call of Nature" aims to promote the world’s most precious resource WATER. As Landscapers and Designers we are fully aware of the need for water to be freely available but often little thought is actually given to its value throughout the world. 884 million people in the world do not have access to clean water, whereas in the UK an average person uses 150 litres per day, most of which goes down the drain.
The term creating a “room outdoors” is often talked about in the gardening world; our design turns this phrase around and creates a garden out of a room, specifically the bathroom, where a lot of water is wasted.

Read the story of our project here :