bbc gardeners world

This year’s BBC Gardeners’ World Show will be particuarly memorable for Heather Appleton and Tracy Foster, whose design ‘The Henri Rosseau Garden’ won the Best Small Garden Category.

Memorable also for Caroline Pollard, winner of the Bradstone Design Challenge, who had won the opportunity to design a garden for the show at Birmingham alongside Chelsea Gold medal winning designer Sarah Eberle.

Tracy and Caroline (pictured left) won a coveted RHS Gold for their garden: ‘The Henri Rousseau Garden’ inspired by the jungle paintings of Henri Rousseau.

A courtyard garden was transformed into a dream like space - which could easily be recreated in the UK – by using mainly hardy plants. Raised beds surrounded a central patio area with more tender plants in pots to be brought out onto paving in summer.

An iron archway by sculptor Juesfish marked one entrance to the garden and two iron staffs marked the other. Animals and organic forms featured in the iron work. Yorkshire quarried stone was used around a mosaic made by Caroline.

Tracy and Caroline have been friends since 2005 when Caroline sent Tracy a question after coming across her web site. The two designers started emailing and got on so well together that they decided to meet up and it wasn’t long before they were going to garden shows and lectures.

‘The Henri Rousseau Garden’ winner of Best Small Garden, BBC Gardeners' World 2008

They decided that it would be a great idea to design and build a garden together and so ideas and designes were exchanged by email as Tracy is based in Leeds and Caroline in Derby. In choosing their theme they both agreed that art is an important element in a garden and both loved Rosseau’s paintings. Because they knew they would be designing a garden for inside the NEC halls, they decided to use plants with strong colour and form to stand out well in the artificial light.

Bradstone design challenge winner, Heather Appleton, (pictured left with Sarah Eberle) scooped a Silver-Gilt for her garden developed around the theme ‘The Good Life.’ Working hand in hand with designer Sarah Eberle, Heather came up with a stunning scheme with its central theme being water as the key to the good life.

Heather, who is delighted with her Silver Gilt, commented that designing the garden had been a real journey and one she had enjoyed every minute of: “From winning the design challenge, to project managing the contractors and commissioning artwork within the garden, it has been a terrific experience with the silver gilt medal being the icing on the cake.

“Sarah has been a real inspiration to work with and has given me the support and encouragement to really take hold of this project. I love the theatre of show gardens and am now setting my sights on my next project!”

'The Good Life Garden' designed by Heather Appleton, winner of the Bradstone Challenge

Sarah paid tribute to Heather, who she said had done a terrific job: “I’m really proud of her. She has the ability to be a great show garden designer – certainly a name to look out for in the coming years.”

Marketing controller at Bradstone, Ian Wright, says: “We’re delighted with the garden and thrilled that the judges have recognised Heather’s hard work, commitment and determination. We wish Heather every success for the future.”

Congratulations to all three designers on their success and hopefully we will be seeing more designs from them in the future.