I'm on the BBC One Show Wed 23rd Apr - Competition Final :)

Here's my design, we were asked for a planting plan and an artist's impression. I struggled with the latter, I got the proportions of the trees wrong but ran out of time to re-draw them:

Dimensions are 12 x 12 metres

 

Here's the brief explaining my concept:

My design celebrates the extraordinary achievements of Gertrude Jekyll the legendary plantswoman. She was a skilled craftswoman, an artist, writer, photographer as well as a prolific garden designer and nurserywoman.

She created many gardens near my home then, as her fame spread, commissions were taken throughout the UK and beyond. In a partnership with the renowned architect Edwin Lutyens they mixed formal classical landscaping softened by naturalist plantings. I have captured the essence of these features to showcase their relevance today.


My flower border uses Miss Jekyll’s innovative colour ideas, to “paint a beautiful picture with plants”. I have used generous drifts of her favourite plants in one of her bolder schemes. The wooded glade provides a counterpoint beloved by Miss Jekyll, which balances and compliments the garden as a whole.

Based on her talents as an artist and photographer, Miss Jekyll recommended viewing sections of her garden as individual pictures. Around my garden, static empty frames of various sizes and heights encourage visitors to experience her vision. (Comment: The empty picture frames are a bit of a gimmick but I thought I needed something wacky to stand a chance).

A ‘hidden’ view, visible at one point only, picks up the landscaping pattern to a shady monumental seat. This replicates the “Cenotaph” created in Miss Jekyll’s own garden, which in turn provided the inspiration for Sir Edwin Lutyens when he was asked by Lloyd George to design a monument to the fallen after Word War 1. No-one would connect the iconic Whitehall Cenotaph which is a very abstract and formal conception with a picturesque Surrey garden, but there is indeed a very strong association.

An uprooted silver birch symbolises the chaos that descended on the world exactly 100 years ago and red poppies hint of the Flanders fields. This quiet arbour under the weeping trees is a place for contemplation with glimpses of the flower border with its light and hope and order.


(Comment: I pinned a lot of hope on this linkage to WW1, what with 2014 being the centenary of the outbreak of WW1, and Miss Jekyll’s garden providing the inspiration for the iconic Whitehall Cenotaph).


Details:

The cat on the bench is a nod to Miss Jekyll’s love of cats, she always had at least half a dozen following her around the garden or monopolising the best seats in her house. There are some lovely photos she took of them, all with charming names.

The art and crafts style bench was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

The landscaping, Urn and steps are copied from Hestercombe in Somerset, one of the best Jekyll/Lutyens gardens.

 

Good afternoon JWK and congratulations my friend,I am of the same mind as our other friends that your Garden should have won, you looked perfectly relaxed on the TV and came across as a professional

 

Ho hum you really should have won in my opinion John, your really created that with a lot of effort and imagination.. You are a certainly a winner in my eyes anyway..

 

Good question, it's 12m X 12m

I'll add that to the post above, cheers Sheal.

 

Yes I did struggle with the 3D drawing, I learnt quite a lot. In the past I've planned my own garden using 2D. So for this competition I started with 2D and then tried to turn it into 3D. It took me a few failed attempts to realise that the flower border actually needs to be 3D first to get the colour combinations and heights right. It really made me stop and think that it needs an artists approach firstly, the 2D plan follows on afterwards and is merely a set of instructions on how to plant it up.

I found this very interesting and I got a couple of books out the library to try and learn the technique. It's not something that I easily picked up and I would need lots of practice or better still I would love to get myself on a garden design course just to understand these fundamentals.