Always believe in, because you are Gold, GOLD! (in the words of Spandeau Ballet)

What do you mean, winning gold has gone to my head? It’s all over now in what feels like the blink of an eye, but I’m still basking in the glow of our tremendous success. I thought I would tie it all off with a bit of a reminisce and reflection of the final days of the show.

The construction and planting of the garden went like a dream, with only one last minute hitch. Where the rills met the raised beds the finish between the black pond liner and the render was proving a bit tricky. We came up with a quick fix solution, and Elliot cut a small section of stone as a detail between the two. Fortunately he still had his cutting tools on site, and enough stone. Did you notice it? The assessors did but the judges didn’t mark us down for it!!

We were all up early for press day, Wednesday 24^th July, even before the gates opened at 7pm, so keen were we to double check everything was OK before any press or the judges arrived at the garden. First at the garden was Monty Don, which made the whole exercise worthwhile for the team at Alzheimer’s Society.  

We made him wait before he could go on the garden until after the judges had been – I didn’t want his mucky boots messing up my lovely paving! This gave the team the chance to chat to him while he waited, with photos taken too. Joe Swift filmed on the garden next to us, and more photos were taken with him. Next up was Chris Bisson, star of Emmerdale, who came on to the garden with his wife. He’s happy for Alzheimer’s Society team to use the photos in their publicity, nice bloke!

We had to scarper whilst the judges prowled the garden so went off to the canteen for tea and a bacon butty. Afterwards, even with the excitement of all the BBC filming, it was a very long wait until the medals were awarded. Tensions were running high as three o’clock came around. An announcement over the tannoy earlier had stated that medals would be given out after 2.30pm.

Then out of the blue I was approached by the secretary of the judges and handed the small bit of card that is the ‘medal’. I turned it over and there was a small golden circle in the middle, hurrah! What an amazing sensation of relief, and joy, after all of the hard work and high expectations, (the latter mainly my own). What a great result for all involved!

Not long after that the Chancellor of the Exchequer visited us, obviously a man of good taste and I had a little chat on the garden with him. Most people asked me why I didn’t push him in the pond but I’m not that rude! And anyway, the water wasn’t that deep, no matter what Elliott said (he told everyone 8 feet, but in fact was only 20 cm).

The next day we had local BBC newsreader Annabel Tiffin filming for the lunchtime and evening news. Lost of great coverage of the garden!

But that wasn’t the end; we then had four full days with the public. The public flocked to the garden with masses of praise and lovely words. Nearly every onlooker seemed to think the garden was beautiful, just like I had hoped. It was a fabulous four days of family, friends and clients coming to see my creation and I enjoyed every minute of it, even the last day when the heaven’s opened and the garden nearly flooded! Masses of press and TV coverage of the garden created great PR for the team from Alzheimer’s Society, as well as lots of interest from visitors to the show requesting information for family or friends living with dementia. All in all we achieved everything we set out to do.

 

The show garden has been such a success, that the team from Alzheimer’s Society have asked if I’ll design them another garden next year, how fab is that? No pressure then. How do I match or do better than this year? Well, there’s always Best in Show and the People’s Choice Award to go for too….watch this space, just like Arnie, I’ll be back!