Gardener strikes gold at flower show

A WARRINGTON woman has struck gold at the RHS Tatton Park Flower Show by scooping first prize for the best back-to-back garden.
Catherine Wright, from The Peppers, Lymm, received the gold medal and glass bowl prize for her design called “Five A Day with Hidden Play.”
Her team, consisting of Jim O’Rouke and Margaret McDonough, were called Reaseheath Alumni, after the college where Catherine studied garden design.
Catherine was delighted with the award. She said: “It came as a real shock – it was a lovely shock though! We are very pleased with it, especially as it is the first year we have entered on our own.”
The stunning back-to-back garden is six meters by four meters in size and caters for adults and children with lots of hidden extras.
Seats have pull-out drawers under them containing sand and water for children to play in and a centre piece table breaks out into three sections to form a surface for toys.
There are many secret “dens” in the garden and there is also an emphasis on health, as fruit and vegetable patches make the garden ideally suited to fulfilling the needs of a modern family.
A Day with Hidden Play is described by judges as: “An inspirational garden demonstrating how a small space can fulfil the needs of a modern family and also highlight the rising importance of food miles and need to improve diet.”
Catherine began the design work to enter the garden in the show in December last year, before receiving entry confirmation in January and starting work on the prize winning garden.
She commented: “Once we had our entry confirmed, we had to then go round asking people to help make different parts of the garden. We’ve borrowed water jumping jets that would normally cost around £3,000.”
Picture shows, from the left, Catherine, Joe Swift of BBC Gardener’s World and Margaret McDonough.