Pictured: Top Left – Michael Lote, It Doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth. Top Right – Mark Draper, The Cotswold Garden. Bottom Left: Perennial’s The Laskett Garden designed by David Wyndham Lewis. Bottom Right: Eat, Drink and Be Rosemary designed by Laura Ashton-Phillips.
Today marks the launch of the RHS Show season across the UK, the much-anticipated start of RHS Malvern Spring Festival at Three Counties Showground in Malvern, Worcestershire, running until Sunday 12th May.
Boasting eight newly-created show gardens, alongside a brand-new feature garden, this year’s festival has a theme of Gardening For Change giving a platform to planet-friendly gardening as well as it’s benefits on communities and wellbeing.
RHS Malvern celebrates two RHS Gold Medals this year, one has been awarded to Michael Lote from MJL Garden Design for It doesn’t Have to Cost the Earth. The design takes inspiration from recycled materials and will be repurposed for community benefit at the Soil Association’s Woodoaks Farm.
Michael commented, “I’m really happy with the award, it was completely unexpected, so I’m over the moon. As this is my debut garden, here at RHS Malvern Spring Festival, the whole team has pulled together to make it a truly wonderful space.”
Top of the award-winning designers for 2024 is Mark Draper from Graduate Gardeners Ltd, who scooped up an RHS Gold Medal for The Cotswold Garden, as well as Best Show Garden and Best Construction Award. The triple-award-winning garden was created to celebrate Graduate Gardeners’ 50th anniversary in 2024 and reflecting their work in the Cotswolds using sympathetic materials.
Kate Dufton, RHS Show Lead commented, “The 2024 RHS Malvern Spring Festival is the 37th annual celebration of horticulture and gardening here at Three Counties Showground. It’s 4 days filled with floral inspiration, award winning gardens, unique plants, shrubs and trees and the wonderful new Festival of House Plants, plus an array of celebrity appearances, talks and demonstrations.”
David Wyndam Lewis was awarded a Silver-Gilt for Perennial’s The Laskett – An Autobiographical Garden, a beautiful space representing the essence of the Laskett Garden in Spring, with woodland planting and a central path drawing the eye toward the focal feature, the iconic Victoria and Albert Temple.
The second Silver-Gilt was taken by Ian McBain, with Concrete 2.0, supported by Red Rhino Crushers and build by Pickwell Paving. The garden showcases the use of sustainable and reclaimed materials, making use of cement-free concrete and recycled aggregates and emphasizing responsible water management with surface water captured by the studio roof used to feed water features and rainwater returning directly to the ground via wide channels of loose recycled aggregate.
Gloucestershire-based designer Laura Ashton-Phillips took Silver for Eat, Drink and be Rosemary, a garden designed for a young, environmentally-conscious family designed with zero wastage in mind.
The Show Gardens are the star of the show, alongside the stupendous Floral Marquee, a pioneering plant friendly zone, the brand-new Fire & Feast Stage and Tips & Tricks Theatre, plus the very best celebrity speakers, workshops and demonstrations.
Tickets for RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2024 start from just £25 (with under 16s free of charge). For full programme details and to book tickets, see https://www.rhsmalvern.co.uk/