In 2013, we won a silver-gilt medal and Peoples Choice Award for our show garden for sponsors Welcome to Yorkshire at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.  

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Our garden celebrated the varied landscapes, both urban and rural, through which the Tour de France passed in 2013.  The right side of the garden was composed of textures, materials and habitats reminiscent of the Yorkshire countryside, with drystone walls incorporating huge boulders and wild flowers clustering around a weather-worn hawthorn tree.  In contrast, the left side of the garden was characterised by sawn paving, ornamental planting and a sleek pool.

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The elliptical pool was made for us by DuPont, and was formed in black Corian.  Its elegant tapering edge and diminishing profile, terminating at a 30cm base, were in stark contrast to its perceived mass and depth of inky water. A ring of fizzing bubbles broke the surface of the water, gently animating the garden.

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The rear wall was formed in slips of North Yorkshire stone, while a band of stacked reclaimed cycle wheels gives the garden a horizontal dynamic.  A multi-stem Viburnum plicatum, reflected in the black pool, acted as an ornamental counter-point to the gnarled hawthorn.

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All photographs © Alistair W Baldwin