In the past 7 years we have won 'Best in Show' 5 times. Our tally is now 17 gold medals in 11 years
Our 2012 Show Gardens
Both gardens won gold medals
The Daily Telegraph Garden by Sarah Price
A beautifully constructed essay in wildness, several leading designers considered Sarah Price’s garden as worthy of Best in Show.
Star plant: Melica altissima alba
Award: Gold
Laurent-Perrier Garden by Arne Maynard
Strong structural elements and sublime planting are hallmarks of Arne’s style. The espalier avenue of copper beech providing a striking vertical axis.
Star plant: Rosa Burgundy Ice
Award: Gold
Our 2011 Show Gardens
Both gardens won gold, and Cleve West was judged 'Best in Show'
Cleve West’s Daily Telegraph garden
Jewel like planting and imaginative use of modern structures in a classical style made this a huge hit with the judges and public.
Star plant: Dianthus cruentus
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Luciano Giubbelei's Laurent-Perrier Garden
A very sophisticated and stylish garden blessed with a great sense of calm that made you want to linger long after the crowds had gone.
Star plant: Parrotia persica
Award: Gold
Our 2010 Show Gardens
Both gardens won gold, and Andy Sturgeon was judged 'Best in Show'
Tom Stuart Smith's Laurent-Perrier Garden
This was the garden that got better and better as the week wore on. A real haven of dappled shade and tranquillity, the softness of the planting contrasted with the elegant bronze pavilion designed by architect Jamie Fobert .The immense ‘cloud’ Box hedge along the pool will be much imitated but the real star was Cenolophium denutatum.
Star plants: Cenolophium denutatum
Award: Gold
Andy Sturgeon’s Daily Telegraph garden
A popular winner. This garden was full of emotional resonance. Although Mediterranean in style, it had a much more interesting character. The hard landscaping used windows of cor-ten steel, with raised linear walkways and dry stone walls of limestone. All of which was offset with beautiful planting in a palette of orange, citrus and purple.
Star plant: Verbascum ‘Clementine’, Iris ‘Action Front’
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Our 2009 Show Gardens
Both gardens won gold, and Ulf Nordjfell was judged 'Best in Show'
Ulf Nordfjell's Daily Telegraph garden
A masterclass in design, this garden was essentially swedish in character but played homage to the english planting tradition. Here the black steel and glass garden room presides over a landscape of granite and running water, interplanted with blocks of silver, white and blue.
Star plants: Eremurus 'Joanna', Sesleria nitida and Pinus nigra 'wateri'
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Luciano Giubbilei's Laurent Perrier garden
This was many people's favourite garden. It's simplicity and tranquility made it a place to linger and reflect. Luciano's trademark combination of tiered hedging and crisp paving in travertine marble was well balanced by an avenue of hornbeam. For the first time ever Luciano used plants in his design. Two blocks of red and purple hues were counterpointed by lush squares of Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster'.
Star plant: Paeonia 'Buckeye Belle'
Award: Gold
Our 2008 Show Gardens
In 2008 we struck gold twice. Tom Stuart Smith and Arabella Lennox Boyd both got gold, but Tom’s garden was awarded ‘Best in Show’. This is the 3rd time one of our gardens has been judged ‘Best in Show’.
Tom Stuart Smith's Laurent-Perrier Garden
Designed as a contemplative space, the talking point of this garden was the grove of 30-year-old hornbeams pruned to appear like rounded ‘clouds’. Below them a tapestry of predominantly green herbaceous plants including Rodgersia, Molinia, Epimedium, Asarum, Hosta ‘Devon Green’ and Astrantia put the emphasis on form and texture, rather than colour.
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Arabella Lennox-Boyd's Daily Telegraph Garden
This garden was inspired by traditional Japanese gardens, where the simplicity of design, planting and materials bring a sense of peace and unity. The garden is dominated by a rectangular shallow slate pool, with an organic curved path and two sculptural rocks. At the rear of the garden, under a large Pterocarya fraxinifolia Arabella has set a mirror behind a grove of bamboo (Phyllostachys aurea and P. sulphurea f. viridis) which provides a bright, flickery shimmer that echoes the play of light on water.
Award: Gold
Our 2007 Show Gardens
Jinny Blom's Laurent-Perrier Garden
inspired by 'the journey of life', was constructed from plants exclusively souced fron the Crocus nursery. The planting was lush, floral and delicate and the design included a number of paths taking different routes to represent a journey through shifting and unpredictable moments in life. The dominant colours were burgundy, claret and soft pinks, shot through with lime green, and flashes of orange.
Award: Gold
Our 2006 Show Garden
This was our 4th collaboration with Tom Stuart-Smith - this time for the Daily Telegraph. The garden was restful naturalistic planting of sumptuous purples and blues all set against walls of avant-garde rusty steel. It wowed visitors and judges alike – in fact one Royal Horticultural Society judge described it as "without question, the best Show Garden I have ever seen".
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Our 2005 Show Garden
Our 4th garden for Laurent Perrier again designed by Tom Stuart Smith. This garden was inspired by the 19th-century gardens at Trentham, in Stoke-on-Trent, which Tom was restoring at the time with Piet Oudolf.
Award: Gold
Our 2004 Show Garden
Designed by Sir Terence Conran & Nicola Lesbirel, this simple, modern and elegant garden (that contained a small restaurant with a fully functioning kitchen!), was inspired by the modernist movement in both its architecture and planting.
Award: Gold
Our 2003 Show Garden
Our 3rd show garden with designer Tom Stuart Smith, the planting of woodland and shade-tolerant perennials was divided by a formal lily pool surrounded by a slate terrace and backed by a slate wall. The planting was made up of distinct layers with shades of white, pale blue, pale yellow and mauve weaving through the planting.
Award: Gold, Best in Show
Our 2002 Show Garden
The Healing Garden, designed by HRH The Prince of Wales, in association with Jinny Blom, was carefully planned to comprise plants that hold medicinal or culinary uses, or have proved useful to man.
Award: Silver
Our 2001 Show Garden
Tom Stuart Smith's Laurent-Perrier Show Garden took the management of nature and the modern notion of an outdoor living space as its theme. It was formed around a minimalist platform of interlocking red sandstone rectangles that step through a brimming meadow.
Award: Gold
Our 2000 Show Garden
In our inaugural year, we teamed-up with Tom Stuart-Smith to create a garden for the Garden History Society and the Historic Royal Palaces. It was a garden inspired by arguably the world's most influential garden designer: Andre le Nôtre, who had died exactly 300 years before.
