About the garden

A rural, water-wise garden, circulating captured rainwater from a green roof and filtering through a blackthorn tower into a wildlife pond. Medicinal and edible plants will be combined with a wild planting style, utilising ‘right plant, right place’ methodology to increase diversity and reduce maintenance.

Artistic reuse and recycling of materials brings art and sculpture to the garden and varies habitats across the site to increase biodiversity. In this garden, visitors can expect a bee-wing inspired pergola containing green roof with an air/water conditioning tower, which provides safe water droplets where invertebrates (such as bees) can drink without the risk of drowning.

The garden displays a conscious blurring between the wild and tamed and showcases innovative design to garden gently and embrace the wider community that we share our gardens with, echoing Mirabel Osler’s book ‘Gentle Plea for Chaos’.

Who or what is the design inspiration for the garden?

Rethinking our mode of living, encouraging harmony with our landscapes and nature.

Blackthorn salt towers, ecological gardening, John Little and Nigel Dunnet’s use of standing dead, supporting and restoring local biodiversity, soil health, innovative roof gardens and closed-loop systems in gardening.

Mirabel Osler’s book ‘Gentle Plea for Chaos’, a need more than ever to reconnect with the land and live gentler on it and Ben Law’s built structures.

Who is this garden for?

An artistic and eco-sensitive couple

Where is the garden set?

Rural Worcestershire

Key take away from the garden

Inspiration for visitors to relook at how their gardens benefit their local environments and creatively support biodiversity.

Highlights or themes to notice/know

Recycling, use of waste materials, wild-style planting and plant communities, increasing habitats by diverse material use and change of planting substrate.

Water-wise gardening.

Supporting nature.

Topical or newsworthy elements within the garden

Water-wise gardening / native plantings / roof gardens / gardening for bees / gardening for health and wellbeing

Current or upcoming gardening trends in the design

Roof gardens / wild gardens / edible gardens / forest gardening / self sufficiency / zero waste / closed loop systems

Where will the garden be relocated?

After the Festival the garden will be relocated to the Humble-Bee Landscaping & Construction Ltd site in Brimfield, Shropshire as one of the gardens that showcase ecological and innovative garden design.

Sustainability

Sustainable building methods, materials or technologies used to help minimise the garden’s environmental impact

The garden will feature crushed recycled waste aggregate for pathways and a green roof with water feature. The garden also presents recycling of grey water, water storage and the use of ground screws for the pergola structure to avoid concrete.

Also at the forefront are standing dead wood and dead hedges.

Ways the garden promotes environmental responsibility /sustainability

Utilising waste materials to create habitats and natural sculpture.

Water-wise gardening, soil conditioning and “tuning” to increase diversity across the site.

Site-specific design, creating a garden that sits comfortably within the wider landscape and support the local ecosystems. Wild boundaries/wildlife corridors and site specific planting (right plant, right place).

Sustainable water management

• Environmentally sensitive use of hard landscaping
• Resilient planting design (to cope with increased climatic extremes)
• Drought-tolerant planting with soil amendment (such as gravel/rock gardens, mulching)
• Waterlogged/bog-tolerant planting with soil amendment
• Rain or grey-water harvesting, storage and re-use
• Water features that minimise environmental risk, and maximise environmental benefit (for example, soft-edge ponds)
• Novel irrigation systems, use of regulated deficit irrigation or self-watering systems

The garden features a green roof pergola which captures and cycles rainwater to help irrigate sections and feeds into a water feature graduation tower of brushwood, inspired by the blackthorn salt towers in Scotland. This naturally filters the water as it slowly drips through, also providing invertebrates safe drinking space without risk of drowning. It culminates in a naturalistic pond and wetland with waterside plantings and damp meadows. Irrigation cycles the water back to the pergola with leaky pipes irrigating the top and again providing safe drinking and bathing for birds and invertebrates.

Planting under the pergola utilises drought-tolerant planting to further diversify the growing conditions and habitats. Paths and “hard standing” made with sand and recycled crushed aggregate aids drainage and mimics sand bed conditions for ground nesting bees and other insects.

Extended margins of planting at the boundaries enhance the wild corridors for the safe movement of animals. Maintenance of the garden is left over winter months to provide cover and habitat for overwintering mammals, insects and bird habitat. Plants are then cut down end of February or when conditions for wildlife (and plant life) have improved.

Plants

The theme will be wild and naturalistic planting with ornamental drought tolerant plants which adds a sculptural statement planting under the pergola.

Right plant, right place and habitat diversity are two big themes here, ensure conditions are varied across the space by changing substrates and exposure to increase the number of habitats. Plants are then chosen specific to the conditions to ensure they thrive and further add contrast and diversity.

There will be about 3000 individual plants in total.

 Five key plants 

• Eryngium agavifolium (agave-leaved sea holly) – not often seen but a statement plant with semi evergreen spiny rosettes that resemble Agaves. Very hardy from our experience and towering flower spikes in summer make it a valuable drought tolerant statement plant with height.
• Trifolium ochroleucon (sulphur clover) – creamy bottlebrush heads atop trifoliate leaflets. Great for pollinators and a relative of our native clover. Adds a wild touch, but with a difference. Very hardy and can be cut right back after flowering to encourage a second flush.
• Filipendula rubra ‘Venusta’ (meadowsweet) – a more ornamental version of our Meadowsweet hedgerow native. Attractive palmate leaves and candy floss frothy flowers. Great for damp meadows and again very hardy. A good host for caterpillars of both moths and butterflies.
• Hippophae rhamnoides (sea buckthorn)  – a very hardy plant that is great for filtering winds as a shelter belt. Striking silvery willow like leaves with bright orange berries that are very high in antioxidants and great for making cordial, jams and even for cosmetics. Edible and medicinal. Native to our coasts on the south East, its roots are nitrogen fixing making it a great pioneer shrub that improves the soil for other plants to grow.
• Rheum palmatum var. tanguticum (false rhubarb) – Big palmate leaves with red undersides and chunky tall flower spikes add a natural drama to plantings. Large leaves are great at changing conditions within a garden, shading and sheltering from the elements. It also provides a great structure and weight to planting schemes and is a good alternative to the usual (and now banned), invasive Gunnera plants often seen at historic gardens by water.

Unsung plant heroes of the gardening world

• Eriophorum angustifolium (cotton grass) – Seen in damp meadows and bogs across Britain, its a beautiful grass with a light fluffy texture and evocative of moors and heaths. Needing acid soils this is grown in a separate basket of ericaceous aquatic soil.
• Aronia melanocarpa – another shrub with edible berries that are high in antioxidants. Little known or grown but makes excellent jams and cordial to help keep away the winter colds.
• Lonicera caerulea (syn. Lonicera kamtschatica) – An edible shrubby honeysuckle called honeyberry. Gaining in popularity, an unusual berry that is very tasty and very hardy. Long lived and easy to grow.

Along with the Sea Buckthorn, these shrubby plants can form a fantastic edible hedge together or, used like us separately, give edible shrubs without much maintenance and fuss. All great for eating, cooking and medicinal uses.

Edible plants

Along with the Sea Buckthorn, the Aronia and Lonicera shrubby plants can form a fantastic edible hedge together or, used like us separately, give edible shrubs without much maintenance and fuss. All great for eating, cooking and medicinal uses.

Alpine strawberry is used as a ground cover in the borders.

Plant suppliers

The designers grow all of their perennials in their own plant nursery and will be supplying as much as they can ourselves. The shrubs and trees are selected from friends and growers locally where possible, such as Ed at Credale Nurseries in Herefordshire.

All perennials are grown peat-free and pesticide free. Some are grown under cover in poly tunnels to bring them on in time for the show but the majority are as they would be seen at that time of year. The designer feels it’s important to show plants as they would be in the garden and not give public unreasonable expectations in terms of growth and flowering for the time of year.

Plant lists are provided by the designer of the garden as a guide to the plants they hope to use in the garden based on the time of year, the location and the Client Brief. The plants that feature at the Show depends on a variety of factors such as weather during the growing season and availability. While the designers try to update lists where possible, the accuracy of the list cannot be guaranteed.

About the designers

Frantisek Zika (lead designer)

“Growing up in rural Czechia, the land is our livelihoods with smallholdings and natural foraging. I had wonderful teachers in primary school who taught me horticulture and beekeeping and I never considered anything else. During my master’s degree, I travelled to Asia and Central America working with specialists on projects in agroforestry and agriculture to benefit the land and local communities. Working with people to benefit the land and biodiversity are my passions.”

Jenny Rafferty (joint lead designer)

“Growing up, I became my mum’s garden assistant, and she would always test my knowledge wherever we were. My mum is a great plantswoman and loves damp gardens in particular. It was common for her to wake up and decide she wanted to dig another pond or extend the one we had, for instance. Damp gardens were my first passion. I would describe my style as wild and naturalistic with awareness of the site-specific experience, often with artistic use of recycled materials and attention to the existing or crafted soundscape.”

Jim Goodman (co-designer & CAD technician)

“I was inspired to make a career in the horticulture industry through a love of the natural world, feeling at home outdoors and the wonder of plants. These things have carried me throughout my career. I’m not sure that I have a design style as such, I do my best to be as customer led as much as possible. I think if there’s something I always try to incorporate, it’s encouraging biodiversity at every opportunity.”

What are the advantages of designing a garden at the show?

The designers say, “Malvern is a fairly local show for us, so perfect for our first standalone show experience. Having tested our abilities at shows over the past two years, we feel ready to try it ourselves and create something personal to us and really challenging us but also bringing together the fabulous community of growers and horti trades that support us.”