Purley resident Susan Clark has returned triumphant from the Malvern Spring Gardening Show where she exhibited a show garden.
Susan applied to be considered under the Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scheme sponsored by Bradstone and was just one of 10 successful designers to be accepted for consideration by Chris and his team to be the mentorée for the 2009 – 2010 year. Like all applicants under the scheme, Susan had to design a garden based on the theme of dance and she chose to exhibit a garden representing the Viennese Waltz.
Susan’s show garden was entitled “They Danced By The Light Of The Moon” and reflected the romance and elegance of two dancers twirling around the dancefloor in full ballroom costumes. The garden was circular in design with a diameter of 5.5m and was split in two with a curving path through the middle. One side of the garden was planted in plants with flowers or foliage in plum and black to represent the man. Planting was enhanced with a white Carrara marble setts area to represent the freshly pressed white dress shirt and this was complimented by a black cast aluminium bench to demonstrate a hand tied bowtie. The other half of the garden was planted in flowers and foliage in shades of silvery white, pale and lavender blue to reflect the elegant lady’s ballgown. A key plant here – and a real showstopper – was Viburnum plicatum ‘Mariesii’ which had BBC Gardeners’ World presenter Joe Swift ask “did you dig it up from someone’s garden’”. Susan was delighted that the BBC chose to film the garden for a piece in Gardeners’ World.
The path was laid with an innovative product from CED Limited – Nidagravel which is a gravel stabilisation system. The meshbased system prevents gravel and other aggregates from washboarding (moving from side to side when pressure is applied from above eg when someone walks or drives over the surface). The path was dressed with black basalt chippings (stunning when wet).
Plants were supplied by Palmstead Nurseries from Ashford in Kent and The Pershore Plant Emporium in Pershore, Worcestershire.
Susan was absolutely delighted to be awarded a Silver Medal by the RHS for her showgarden. “I would like to thank my sponsors for their invaluable help in bringing this dream into reality. The support from my suppliers – CED, Palmstead Nurseries and The Pershore Plant Emporium – meant that I was working with top quality natural stone and plants which made it a real pleasure to build the garden
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