Winners of first inaugural Young Garden Designers of the Year: Capel Manor

March 26, 2011 - PRLog -- His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales presented awards to aspiring young student garden designers at the 11th March opening day of the Ideal Home Show, held at London’s Earls Court.

The Prince, who was on a royal visit to this year’s Ideal Home Show, joined garden designers and Ideal Home Show Ambassadors Diarmuid Gavin and David Domoney to present the inaugural  ‘Young Garden Designers of the Year’ Award.

The competition, created by David Domoney was launched earlier this year, invited six colleges from around the UK to enter into the first annual Ideal Home Show ‘Young Gardeners of the Year’ competition, in association with the Prince’s Foundation for the Built environment. http://www.daviddomoney.com/2122/about/lifestyle-events/hrh-awards-young-student-garden-designers

The winning college accepting their Gold award from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales was Capel Manor with their ‘Box Clever’ concept garden.  

Built from eco-friendly and sustainable materials, it provides the gardener with a versatile outdoor haven from city life. Using a cellular storage system all the elements are interchangeable, from bird boxes to a wormery.

The planting is mainly evergreen, selected to provide year round interest and to promote biodiversity. Layered planting also provides a range of wildlife habitats, with flowering plants as a nectar source for insects and a green feature wall to add vertical interest.

A reflective water feature creates a tranquil ambience and provides another essential wildlife habitat.  

In second place with The Silver Award was Bridgwater for their Lily Pad garden, a modern water garden, which takes its design theme from the Water Lily, with a lily pad design forming the main feature of the garden. The Pad is a small, outdoor garden room, which in reality, would be within the environment of a larger garden.  The South East facing aspect of the garden provides a good level of direct sunlight for the water feature in the mornings with some respite for the rest of the day. The aspect therefore offers versatility in planting by allowing the use of plants like hostas and ferns that prefer limited direct sunlight. Further shade for both the planting and those enjoying the garden is provided by the lily-pad shaped shade sail, which is positioned over the main decking feature.

The Bronze Award went to Writtle College’s, student living inspired ‘LNP’ Last Night’s Pizza garden. Writtle created a garden of which many of us could only dream of having in this busy and hectic time in society.  The seating consists of chill out lounging beanbags with low maintenance planting to give structure and interest through most of the year.

Parts of the garden have been constructed from recycled materials from last year’s Chelsea Flower Show. The fence design has been developed to make the space feel interesting and to make a feature of the horizontal lines.  These lines contrast well with the vertical timbers around the Bar area and make the space feel larger than it is.

The remaining designs - Askham Bryan’s ‘‘Geometric to Natural’’ garden, Chichester College’s ‘‘A Touch of Grass’’, and Shuttleworth’s ‘Biodiversity Garden’ all received an Award of Merit.

David Domoney, competition founder commented: “I am delighted to be able to bring Britain’s crop of new garden talent to the fore for the very first time. This is an exciting opportunity for young designers and landscapers to launch their careers, and I believe we are showcasing the new talent of our future.”

The aim of the competition was to support emerging talent by highlighting the very best examples of sustainable practice in British garden design amongst student designers, whilst offering them a taste of what it is like to work in the industry. “

About David Domoney
David Domoney (http://www.daviddomoney.com)  is one of the best-known and most popular gardening designers and broadcasters in the country. He has a wealth of television presenting experience including appearing as ITV’s regular gardener for ‘This Morning’ and also on ‘GMTV’, ‘Better Homes’, ‘House of Horrors’, ‘Solution Street’, and ‘Plant Doctor’ and is the only dedicated garden designer for the ‘60 Minute Makeover’ show.

David has written for ‘House Beautiful Magazine’, ‘UK Landscape Today’ and ‘Garden News’ and his garden expertise has appeared in ‘The Times’, ‘The Daily Mail’, ‘The Sunday Mirror’ and ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

He has also won numerous gardening awards including being presented with a Gold Medal at the 2009 Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show for his Piranha infested underwater garden. In 2010 he created a £20million pound garden there, the Ace of Diamonds.

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David Domoney is a Gardening Expert, Medal Winning Garden Designer and TV Personality. David now offers you all the help, advice and tips you need for successful gardening online at www.daviddomoney.com