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TV gardener’s creation wins him a silver medal at Chelsea
 IRISH
TV gardener Diarmuid Gavin has won a silver medal at this year’s
London Chelsea Flower Show.
The horticulture expert won the prize for The Westland Garden, his environmental
garden featuring recycled products and an eco-studio.
The studio was built by a Co. Meath company and featured a red-cedar pavilion
set amid birch trees and bubble seats, all suspended over an outdoor deck.
Two separate glass studio spaces, each with its own deck overlooking a
pond, were integral to the over-all design-serving as work or relaxation
rooms.
Gavin said he was inspired to create the garden when a retired gentleman
asked him to design something ‘interesting’ for his retirement.
The 43-year-old said: “He didn’t want to do too much gardening
work, but still wanted something stimulating he could play around with.
“I began imagining how I would like to spend the autumn years with
my own wife and came up with the idea for a his and hers studio.
“Sun streaming in through a modern glass structure with a deck and
swing chairs, like On Golden Pond looking out over a stretch of water.
“Plants would have to be architectural and reflect well in the water-silver
birch and shrubs such as clipped box balls.”
Gavin is well-known as a garden designer and television personality both
here in Britain and in Ireland.
Currently based in London, he won an RDS Gold Award in 1991 and 1993,
a bronze medal at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1995 and a silver-gilt medal
in 2004.
He has presented a number of BBC television programmes including Gardeners’
World; Home Front with Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and, in 2004, a Twofour
and RHS production Gardens Through Time.
And another Irish garden called ‘Transit of Venus’, constructed
with mirrors and Portland Stone by British designer Sue Goss, who lives
in West Cork, also collected a prize at the show-winning a bronze award
in the Best Chic Garden category.
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