Member Article

North East pride blooms at world famous flower show

The passion of North East England will be in full bloom this week as a garden representing the region takes pride of place at one of the world’s most famous flower shows. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show represents the catwalk of the gardening world, attracting the most talented garden designers from around the world. This year’s event from May 23 – 27 is expected to welcome over 157,000 visitors.The North East England Passion Garden will be on display among the Courtyard Gardens. Inspired by the region’s rich heritage, culture and diversity of landscape, the garden includes references to Hadrian’s Wall, The Angel of the North, the County Durham countryside and the renaissance of Tees Valley. The three rivers of Tyne, Wear and Tees, that have so strongly influenced and continue to shape North East England’s development, are also represented. It has been created by Killingworth-based Landscape Management Services, which has had gardens at Chelsea each year since 2002, previously winning a Silver-Gilt and a Bronze award. Stacy Hall, Director of Communications at One NorthEast, said: “From North Northumberland to the Tees Valley, there are wonderful historic and contemporary gardens in both the region’s countryside and vibrant towns and cities. The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is a fantastic world stage on which to promote North East England and to showcase the region’s gardens to both a national and international audience.” And the Passion Garden is not the only entry representing the North East - an innovative African Eden garden design, which marks the launch of new campaign to tackle poverty and malnutrition in Africa, has called on Northumberland-based designer Alan Capper to assist with their entry. GardenAfrica, which will herald the start of a 5-year campaign in southern Africa, incorporates nutritious foods and medicinal herbs for treating debilitating HIV-related and other infections. This garden is acting as a forerunner for the campaign, which will see 1001 training and resource gardens created across Southern Africa. Once established, these gardens can yield 500,000 new home and community gardens, from which around 3 million people can reap their benefits.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .