The Medal Winners
by Graham Rice
See the Full List of Awards

A team of first time Chelsea designers walked off with the award for Best Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show today. The Anglo-Dutch team of British garden designer Arne Maynard and Dutch plantsman and designer Piet Oudolf pipped six other Gold Medal winners to the coveted award with their "Evolution" tapestry of perennials enclosed in a billowing box hedge for Gardens Illustrated magazine.

Other Gold Medal winners were the Evening Standard, with Arabella Lennox-Boyd's "Garden for all Time" featuring six ancient olive trees and timeless water sculpture, Leyhill Prison with their wild flower garden entitled 'Time' The Healer', the Alpine Garden Society for its picturesque piece of the Austrian Tirol with huge rocks and thousands of alpine plants, Cabbages and Kings with the Chateau de Bosmelet for its Anglo-French garden of decorative vegetables, RF Hotels for a determinedly modernistic "Living Sculpture Garden" and the Garden History Society for its parterre in the French style with the focal point of a slanted mirror.

Gardens Illustrated's "Evolution" Show Garden took home the top honours at Chelsea 2000. Photo copyright judywhite/Gardenphotos.com
Best Show Garden
In the new marquees sixty four Gold Medals were awarded covering the full range from International exhibits like Craig House Cacti from California and Kings Park from Perth Western Australia to small nurseries like Glenedd Violets for their African Violets and Hampshire Carnivorous Plants.

The Gold Medals seemed to come in pairs this year for the different types of exhibits. Two rose nurseries won Golds, David Austin Roses, who introduced six new varieties of their 'new' old-fashioned roses and Mattocks Roses featuring a wide range of their County Series of ground cover varieties. Two exhibits in the cottage garden style again did well. Glebe Cottage Plants, showing hardy perennials old and new, and Hardys Cottage Garden Plants with their four exquisite borders surrounding wooden chess board both won Golds.

Both sweet pea exhibits from Diane Sewell and Dave Matthewman won Golds and two hosta exhibits from Goldbrook Plants and Park Green Nurseries won Golds; the two small bulb specialists, Avon Bulbs and Broadleigh Gardens, two herb exhibits from Jekka's Herb Farm and Cheshire Herbs, and the two nurseries specialising in carnivorous plants, Hampshire Carnivorous Plants and South West Carnivorous Plants, also won Golds.

Seven specialist societies won Gold Medals. The British Mycological Society's exhibit explaining the difference between edible and poisonous fungi, the bonsai exhibit from the Federation of British Bonsai Societies and the National Chrysanthemum Society all won Golds. The Hardy Plant Society showed plants from the reigns of the two Queen Elizabeths, Orchid Society of Great Britain showed the wide range of orchids which can be grown by amateurs - both Golds.

Two scientific stands won the top accolade. The exhibit from Sparsholt College in Hampshire outlined how mathematics influences nature and the Oxford Botanic Garden explained why plants smell.

Jekka McVicar of Jekka's Herbs won yet another Gold Medal for her meticulously planted herb stand in the Floral Marquee. Photo copyright judywhite/GardenPhotos.com
Gold Medal
Brinsbury College's outdoor exhibit was lauded as the Best Courtyard Garden.Photo copyright judywhite/GardenPhotos.com
Gold Medal
The smaller Courtyard Gardens are always an inspiration to visitors and this year two won Gold Medals; one went to Warwickshire College while the award for the Best Courtyard Garden went to Brinsbury College from West Sussex.

Along with this mass of Gold Medals there was disappointment amongst the flower arrangers. In all just four Golds were awarded, across both the professional and amateur sections and thirty six exhibits were given no award at all.

The top awards for floral arrangements by non-professionals went to an unlikely duo. The Barbados Flower Arranging Society won a Gold Medal and the award for the best floral arrangement while the second Gold was won by the Rainham Flower Club from Kent. Amongst professionals - again there were two… The Country Garden from Denbighshire and Earthworks International Designers from London.

But there was universal enthusiasm for the top award, the Best Garden Award won by Gardens Illustrated magazine for their inspired planting, featuring just four different perennials, enclosed by rolling hedges and enlivened by exquisite water features.

See the Full List of Awards

All Photos copyright judywhite/GardenPhotos.com
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