The Wrekin Housing Trust garden scoops gold at Shrewsbury Flower Show
The Wrekin Housing Trust has scooped the large gold medal and the Mike Hough Memorial Trophy at this year’s Shrewsbury Flower Show for its innovative ‘Wasted’ design.
It captures two elements within the garden; the creative re-use of waste materials from Trust properties and the rich geology of Shropshire.
The garden celebrates the fact that you can create a stunning outdoor space from materials you wouldn’t normally consider. In this case, the walls of the garden have been constructed to look like ‘strata’, using hand crushed roofing tiles, bathroom tiles, bark, rubble and roofing felt, which give colour and texture.
To contrast with this, a cool planting scheme was chosen which includes purples, lilacs, whites and greens with particular emphasis on the foliage of the plants. Trees also give height and interest to the garden – in fact the trees used are the same kind as those which lined the aisle of Westminster Abbey for the Royal Wedding, Acer campestre ‘Elstrijk’
The addition of a seating area provides the perfect spot for a relaxing rest while light reflecting water pools add interest and again soften the overall effect of the garden.
The brief of the garden was very much to create a space which wasn’t merely a slave to recycled materials, it had to look good too and provide ideas for the innovative use of waste materials around the Trust’s housing communal areas.
The garden has been constructed by the Trust’s own trades and landscaping teams with help from a team of willing volunteers. The design is by Mike Vout and Teresa Rham. The plants will be sold off at the end of the show with the proceeds going to charity.
