Max Harriman, junior designer at landscape company Bowles & Wyer, is one of five new designers exhibiting at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show as part of the Young Designer Competition, with a garden designed to help city dwellers escape the stresses of urban life.
Titled ‘Calm in Chaos’, the garden will use design elements to encourage visitors to slow down and spend more time looking, touching and interacting with the natural environment, in order to reap the restorative benefits of being in a garden.
Max Harriman said: “I’m thrilled to have been selected as a finalist in the Young Designer Competition and am really looking forward to experiencing the excitement of creating a garden for an RHS show. Modern life, particularly in urban environments, is increasingly deprived of green space. The connection between horticulture, or being in a green space, and improvements to mental wellbeing has long been documented in scientific literature. Gardening reconnects us to nature, keeps us active and takes us outside. I hope the garden will give visitors a sense of calm against the backdrop of the show just as it would do in the chaos of an urban setting.”
Following the show, the garden will be relocated to Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge where it will be given a permanent home as the ‘NHS 70 Garden’ celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS and offering a calm and restorative space away from the main hospital for patients and their families. The garden will be the fifth garden designed by Bowles & Wyer for the Cambridge University Hospitals.
John Wyer CEO at Bowles & Wyer said: “Max is a hugely talented member of the team here at Bowles & Wyer whose ability and ambition has been evident from the start. Nuturing talent within the industry is central to what we do at Bowles and Wyer and we’re thrilled that one of our young designers has been chosen as a finalist in such a prestigious competition. Having the opportunity to relocate the garden to a permanent location at Addenbrookes Hospital is also a wonderful opportunity for him. I wish him the best of luck and look forward to watching his progress as his career develops.”