HAMPTON COURT PALACE FLOWER SHOW 7-12 July 2010

Our conceptual garden "It's hard to see" was awarded Gold Medal and Best Conceptual Garden Award at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. "It's hard to see" was among 5 avant garde and thought-provoking designs chosen from a total of 32 entries to exhibit at this year's Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

Conceptual gardens are a special category running in their fourth year in Hampton Court. They question and redefine existing design boundaries, and express a level of innovation and creativity that is not always possible within other garden categories.

Free from aesthetical or functional constraints, conceptual gardens explore abstract ideas and blend horticulture and conceptual art.

The theme of our garden was to represent the idea of beauty and benefit of inner-growth and self-reflection in contrast to the artificial values of consumer-orientated society.

To replicate the process of search and discovery, which is neither easy nor obvious, the viewer was encouraged to seek out and find the garden. At first sight, the immediate surface area appeared to be empty, barren and sterile to represent failure and collapse of materialist belief systems. Offering the illusion of life and fulfilment, those in reality were lifeless and empty.

But inside, where one wouldn't normally look for a garden, viewers were offered a glimpse of something strong, vibrant and beautiful. Below the soil level, lush planting was concealed, symbolic of the precious content within ourselves which we have struggled to discover. Mirrors on all four sides created the feeling of the hidden garden spreading far beyond its visible outer boundaries.

Plants used in the garden:
Carex muskingumensis
Colocasia esculenta
Cyperus alternifolius
Equisetum ramosissimum
Hemerocallis 'Luxury Lace'
Hosta 'Devon Tor'
Hosta 'Green Fountain'

The garden was built by The Outdoor Room

Railing supplied by S3i Stainless Steel Solutions

Rubber chippings supplied by Dunweedin'