Royal Horticultural Society - RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2008

Clare Agnew returns to Chelsea 2008 with 'The Reflective Garden' - a 22 metre-wide garden which aims to provide visitors with both shelter and structure for contemplation and relaxation.

She likens designing a garden for Chelsea with that of creating a theatre set - Clare brings past experience as a BBC set designer to her horticultural work - and says that the visual impact of the gardens inevitably create emotional responses, which literally set scenes.

"When I begin to plan my show gardens for RHS Chelsea Flower Show, I think about creating a vista: a three-dimensional environment for people to walk through and experience," she says. "The visual balance and the use of colour are the means by which I look to evoke a response from visitors."

Clare explains that the garden plays on two senses; as the eye is drawn to the reflective pools the ear is drawn to the sound of running water nearby: "The garden is calm, tranquil, textural and reflective; largely green but interspersed with a few jewels. The layout of The Reflective Garden is geometric, both on plan and in its vertical structure, but the planting draws mainly from marshes, ditches and reed beds, with Zen influences in the foreground. The clipped cubes of box and the umbrella shaped plane trees are a halfway house reconciling the sharp geometry of the pools to the softer planting around them."

The garden uses statuesque hedges of pleached hornbeam providing a backdrop to early flowering plants and grasses reflecting in the pools. Tall massed angelicas stand within drifts of purple flowering calamagrostris and creamy iris sibirica.

Arum lilies punctuate damp beds of ‘mind your own business’ and cinnamon ferns jostle at the waters edge. The shaded seating beneath the six umbrella trees is lit by a backdrop of seventy foxglove candles growing amongst elegant ferns and tall rustling bamboos.

"As a garden designer, the Chelsea Flower Show is all about competing with the best in the business," explains Clare. "As such I am thrilled to have Ruffer supporting me; together we will ensure that The Reflective Garden is a must-see."

Clare began her career in garden design after several years working in interior architecture and exhibitions. She has worked on set design for the BBC and also undertaken commissions at Bonham’s and Christie’s. She first competed at Chelsea in 2005 winning a silver medal.