Garden Designer gets on her Bike to Reduce Plant Miles

Worcestershire garden designer, Hannah Genders, is quite literally getting on her bike this Spring, to scour the local countryside for materials she can use in her Show Garden at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show.

Hannah, from Rous Lench near Evesham, is celebrating the colour and diversity of the area in which she lives and works, by creating a garden in which everything has been found just a short bike ride away.

'My Very Local Veg Garden', includes many local cultivars of heritage fruit varieties, and is full of ideas for growing vegetables in small spaces.

After the Malvern Spring Gardening Show, it will be rebuilt at Hillers Farm Shop and Garden near Ragley Hall.

Hannah's garden is eco-friendly, with recycled paths of slabs, terracotta tiles and granite setts from a local reclamation yard just West of Worcester. All the wood is from the woodland near to her home, and the plants have been sourced from small local nurseries using peat-free compost. The gravel is from the most local quarry in the Forest of Dean.

It is designed as a space for sitting and eating outside.

"The central patio area is inspired by my mother who died unexpectedly last summer," says Hannah. "She was a keen gardener and cook, and she loved to sit outside and eat with family and friends. This garden is my tribute to her."

Hannah's garden is just one of 30 enchanting gardens on display at Malvern this year, as part of a collection which includes a Tudor-style parterre, a Shepherd's garden and a suburban paradise inspired by a fusion of Chinese and Japanese art.

There are 11 candidates for this year's Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship, sponsored by Bradstone, and they will be creating gardens inspired by the atom. 7 local schools have also adopted science as a theme for their school gardens.

The new Garden in Harmony Theatre boasts two walk-through gardens designed by 2009 Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship winner, Paul Hervey-Brookes.

The 'In Flight Garden' is a pocket space of valuable wildlife habitats and native species, and the 'Companion Garden' is an area of pest-repellent, companion planting.

The Malvern Spring Gardening Show is a partnership between The Malvern Showground and the Royal Horticultural Society, and takes place on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 12 - 15 May.

Other new attractions include Landscaping Live, Country Living Pavilion, a Discovery Zone for younger gardeners and a vegetable planting project in association with Care Farming West Midlands.

For tickets and information, please visit the web site: www.threecounties.co.uk/springgardening or telephone the Showground on 01684 584924.

 
 

Article posted on 09 Apr 2011.

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