The Re-Purposed Stone In The Finished Garden

24th May 2022 - Written By Andy

The stone that London Stone kindly let us re-purpose from their skip in the final garden.

The Conquest guys did a great job of expertly laying the Jura Limestone, and there were a couple of days of hard graft to get the offcuts down to the sizes we wanted to load up the gabion cages!

Creating a mixed native hedge in 1 month for Chelsea…

04th May 2022 - Written By Andy

Part of the concept for the show garden is joining front gardens together so they can be used communally, with no hard boundaries allowing the creation of street long green spaces and habitats. If there was to be some partial screening, a mixed native hedge would be the ideal solution.

These images show the process (in reverse) of creating the mixed hedge with Creepers in less than 1 month - attempting for it to look wild and established, with 5 species intertwining to bring interest and valuable resources for wildlife. Now only 8 days to go till they are delivered to the show and 20 odd till the public arrive. It’s looking on track with lots of progress the last few weeks, which will hopefully continue allowing it to bulk up and fill a few of those gaps.

Timber and Metal Details - W.I.P

21st April 2022 - Written By Andy

Conquest Creative Spaces working their magic on the timber benches & boundary details, Dan @ T.Brown & Sons killing it with the metalwork!

Getting closer to show time and the pre-fab is in progress, with timber and metalwork in full swing, showing how some of the details will really bring the garden to life.

The timber is 100 yr old reclaimed Maple tongue and groove boards, we’re making a feature of the character they hold and also the T&G details to create the layered effect on the edge of the bench tops. Hopefully this will make the timber feel immediately grounded in the garden and like its been there forever.

The steel is off to be galvanised and then acid washed to give it a nice patina, with some extra details to be added before it can all drop seamlessly into the garden come show time - fingers crossed. The steel will help the garden be sited aesthetically in a city, playing off industrial materials and their finishes and wear.

Plants & Trees - W.I.P

06th April 2022 - Written By Andy

Nice one Creepers Nursery, for working with me to realise the planting concept, and supplying tree’s with a ton of character…

…the aim is to have an eclectic mix of planting from wildflowers you’d find on Hackney Marshes and native hedging to resilient perennials and succulents that can make use of crushed paving mixed into the soil and used as a top dress to create a free draining planting medium. There’s also moisture loving plants situated in a container used as an overflow tank for the water collection system. All plants picked for a mix of their qualities that can expedite mental health benefits of gardens - long flowering, colour, edibles - combining to create a complex landscape to encourage bio-diversity.

Here’s a snapshot of the planting concept from an initial presentation. SCROLL FOR THE PLANT PICS.

Re-claiming Waste Material With London Stone

21st March 2022 - Written By Andy

The concept of the pathways is that the paving in the front gardens has been removed and then re-used in a more permeable pathway that gives planting precedent. To be in line with the concept I wanted to use paving that was due for waste. I visited London Stone and with the team we worked out we could use the offcuts and broken bits of stone from the skip to create the pathways. This broken stone will also be used in a structural way in gabion’s, and crushed and used to help create a free draining substrate/top dress for areas of planting.

Below are images of the material palette forming and being refined.

www.londonstone.co.uk

Being Inspired By The Local Landscape

14th March 2022 - Written By Andy

The show garden is all about growing connections and breaking down boundaries. Connecting people to their communities through communal front garden spaces, creating ecelectic planting to increase bio diversity and encourage the connection to the landscape around you - even more important in urban environments where this green space can be scarce and needs to be sought out. Re-creating this on a personal level can allow everyone to access the benefits.

Here’s some of my fave photo’s of the Hackney Marshes, my local landscape which helped inspire the concept and influence planting design.

Project Development

12th March 2022 - Written By Andy

Early development of the concept. Various plans and explorations of space that led to the final design. At one stage I thought the garden was bigger and wanted to incorporate a ‘pavement’ to explore tree pit planting. The overall concept of the two front gardens joined together with the rear boundary representing the houses has always been present.

All About Core Arts

04th February 2022 - Written By Andy

Core Arts and Core Landscapes transform underused land in deprived urban areas for people to self-manage their mental health, transform their local environments and connect to their wider community. Using horticulture, design, workshops, training and events to improve mental and physical health, overall wellbeing, and community cohesion.

They currently manage a range of green spaces including a roof garden, garage garden and street-level garden, plus nearby tree pits and street planters, and a 60m long meadow strip and community orchard in nearby Homerton Grove. There’s plans to green up more of the local environment by creating a new community garden in the grounds of their neighbours, St Barnabas church, and where the plants from the Chelsea garden will be relocated to.

Core Landscapes works with community volunteers, support volunteers and mental health-based referrals via Core Arts in a deprived inner city area where access to green education and space is limited showing that gardens can be created anywhere, anyhow by anybody.

I used to pass by the roof garden at Core regularly and always wonder what it was like up there, prompting me to find out more about them. The more i looked at the great work they did the more I realised they would be the perfect fit for this concept. Here’s some snaps I took on previous visits when I finally got to see their tucked away urban green spaces, and when meeting the clients they help - who really made it clear to me how much the gardens have helped positively impact their lives.

Chelsea Flower Show 2022: The Core Arts Front Garden Revolution - The Reveal

27th January 2022 - Written By Andy

We are delighted to announce that we will be creating a show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May.

We have teamed up with leading Hackney mental health charity, Core Arts.

‘The Core Arts Front Garden Revolution’ Garden is one of 12 gardens for good causes being funding by Project Giving Back at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this spring.

The design will highlight the connections between gardens and mental and physical wellbeing. When this relationship builds and you give plants precedent in your front garden space the connection to positive environmental change forms - flood mitigation, pollution capture, reducing temperatures in prolonged summer heat. The design focuses on a pair of front gardens on an urban street that have removed boundaries to use the space differently, harnessing the power of plants using the available resources.

It reflects Core Arts’ mission to break down barriers to enable recovery, social inclusion, and positive mental health, supporting people experiencing mental health issues to develop skills and talents, fulfil their potential, and connect with their communities.

Creating community-facing front gardens, that are desirable places to be in, can be the catalyst for creating important connections within our own streets.

I will be detailing the inspiration behind the design, the build up and the story of the garden and the show through blog posts on this page - highlighting the hard work that the wider team and our collaborators will be putting in to make this concept a reality come May.