RHS Tatton Show 2005
Nacro/Steps - Choose Life Garden
The garden involved was the Choose Life garden sponsored by Nacro and Steps,
two organisations working with people who may have been repeat offenders; ended up homeless
for whatever reason; or who suffer from drug/alcohol dependency problems.
The garden was designed around ideas generated from Nacro/Steps clients and service users.
Designer Graham Hardman, president of the Japanese Garden Society, pulled these ideas
together into a garden illustating the life experiences of Nacro and Steps clients'.
For each garden a design brief has to be submitted to the RHS for approval. Once approved,
January of show year at the latest, and a site has been allocated on the show ground, each garden
is built by the sponsor, designer and any other required contractors. Then it is marked by
RHS judges, who score delivery of the design brief, build quality and horticultural presentation.
These marks may result in the sponsor being awarded a medal ranging from bronze to gold but a
medal is not a certainty.
The Choose Life garden had two main areas: Chaos - representing an erratic, troubled
lifestyle illustrated by spiky, unruly plants; and Order - representing stability and
calmness, symbolised by water, fruit and vegetable plants and evergreen shrubs with bright
uplifting splashes of yellow. A snake path, which symbolises the temptation to return to
old habits and a ladder path, which represents hope and the way to a more positive life,
join these areas.
These Back-to-Back gardens are only small – 6m by 4m so innovative use of space is essential.
The build up commenced Sunday 10th July and all had to be complete by 8pm Monday 18th July.
Although it sounds like quite a long time, it flies past.
The garden was awarded a silver medal on the Tuesday afternoon and then filmed and featured
on the Gardeners World program Thursday night. The public response was extremely positive
especially to the input it gave to many of the young people who helped.
Sunday 24th July saw the garden dismantled and plants sold off at 4pm. After being a public
visitor to RHS shows for many years, the privilege of going behind the scenes was fantastic
and dismantling the garden was all part of the magic with no sense of sadness! Anyway I got
to buy some of the plants out of the garden – all for “charidee” of course!
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