10:30am Thursday 9th July 2009
A Craven landscape gardener is enjoying his popularity following his Gold Medal win at BBC Gardeners’ World Live in Birmingham last month.
Chris Myers, of Thornton-in-Craven, is now in London with Lord Mayor Boris Johnson to create a garden to promote “Grow Your Own” at this week’s Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. The event started on Tuesday and runs until Sunday.
The garden is part of “Edible Spaces”, a series of three front gardens created to publicise the Capital Growth initiative, which is encouraging Londoners to grow fruit and vegetables and create 2,012 new growing spaces by 2012.
Capital Growth was launched by the Lord Mayor and Rosie Boycott, chairman of London Food, in 2008 and the scheme has nearly 100 spaces already being cultivated in a diverse range of places, such as canal banks, schools, roofs and private gardens.
The last-minute opportunity, which sees Chris exhibit alongside experts such as Gardeners’ Question Time regular Matthew Biggs and show gardener Adam Frost, stands testament to his recent achievements, which include winning gold for his Ricola Sweets herbal garden in Birmingham.
His “Edible Spaces” garden has been designed to show how produce can fit into the context of a garden, while also creatively demonstrating how fruit and vegetables can be grown in a smaller space.
He is also including one of his trademark water features by introducing a canal and jetty which will flow at the bottom of the garden.
“Having been asked to do the garden just over a month ago, it has been a real race against time. However, there was no way that I could have turned down an opportunity like this,” said Chris. “It’s a real honour to be asked to work on such a prestigious show feature and to help promote such a fantastic initiative.
“It’s also exciting to be taking part at Hampton Court, which has always been one of my favourites of the RHS shows. It is one of the largest flower shows in the world and certainly one of the best-regarded, and it’s brilliant to be part of it.”
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