Young Garden Designers at RHS Tatton Park

RHS gives young garden designers the chance to kick start their careers and gain invaluable exposure at a prestigious RHS Show with its Young Designer Competition, now in its 11th year. This year, four young designers created gardens at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show.

Practicality Brown like to support young designers, see blog post on Hampton Court for the garden we were involved with this year. At Tatton Park, we supplied our elegant Portuguese Laurel Practical Instant Hedge for a garden in the Young Designers category. Grown here at our nursery in Iver, we have taken great care with these instant hedging solutions to supply a premium quality product, as befits a Show Garden.

The Phytosanctuary Garden

Gold medal winner and Young Designer of the Year 2019

Our Practical Instant Hedge on Kristian Reay’s Phytosanctuary Garden

This beautiful garden was designed by Kristian Reay and is planted with a Mediterranean theme to raise awareness of Xylella fastidiosa disease that poses a threat to many of our much-loved plants.

At first glance, this garden is a beautiful and desirable space awash with ornamental grasses and a palette of fragrant perennials evocative of the Mediterranean. But look beyond its fragile beauty and a darker message is revealed – the growing threat of the deadly plant disease.

At the centre of the garden is a graceful Olea europaea, the olive tree that has been devastated by the disease throughout southern Europe.

Similarly, the Lavandula (lavender), and Prunus lusitanica hedge are also ‘at-risk’ species that have been severely affected by Xylella. We supplied the Practical Portuguese Laurel Instant Hedge, which in integral to this statement garden.

The art designed on the back wall depicts Xylella. The circle represents xylem, while Xylella can be seen inside. It shows how Xylella multiplies and restricts water flow within the xylem, threatening the plant.

Kristian was announced as the winner of the Young Designer of the year 2019 at the RHS Flower Show Tatton Park and will also take home an RHS Gold medal for his thoughtful design. Speaking ahead of the competition, Kristian said: “As a Young Designer I’m deeply concerned about the risk from plant diseases like Xylella to our gardens and landscapes, so I think this is a really important topic to discuss at the show.

“I’ve included at-risk garden favourites like lavender in the planting to highlight the impact the disease could have if these plants were to vanish.”

The role of gardeners and the scientific community in responding to the threat posed by Xylella is explored in a display describing the BRIGIT project and the Defra and Animal and Plant Health Agency’s Don’t Risk It! campaign.

Congratulations to Kristian, a Gold medal winner and now Best Young Designer!