Newsletter October 2009
Multi award-winning Chelsea Flower Show designer to exhibit at 2010 Show
It is exciting to be announcing that next year’s international feature garden for the Ellerslie International Flower Show will be designed by a multi award-winning Chelsea Flower Show garden designer.
Chris Beardshaw (pictured right) is renowned for his formal English garden designs. He has won nine Gold and Silver Gilt Royal Horticultural Society medals, five Best in Show Awards and the People’s Choice Award at the Chelsea Flower Show two years running.
His exhibition gardens are always winners and whether exhibiting at Chelsea or the Royal Horticultural Society’s other shows throughout England, his name attracts the crowds. His latest success was winning both Gold and the Best in Show Award for the second consecutive year at this year’s Tatton Park Show. This award-winning garden will soon be permanently installed in the University of Liverpool’s Ness Botanic Gardens near Chester.
Visitors to next year’s Ellerslie International Flower Show are guaranteed of a show-stopping garden design and we are privileged to have attracted to Ellerslie a designer of such an international standing. Chris has wowed the industry for many years with his designs which are innovative, inspiring and reflect his passion for flowers and gardening.
His Ellerslie 2010 garden will be a traditional English garden with lots and lots of flowers. It will draw on his love and passion for the arts and crafts period which saw the rise of some of the greatest contributors to the gardening world such as plantswoman Gertrude Jekyll and landscape architect Thomas Mawson. The garden will include a number of new release plants from Trents Nursery.
Chris runs his own design and consultancy practice in the United Kingdom, however, he works internationally designing everything from small private gardens to public spaces. He is the principal designer of a major landscape development in Bahrain, created an award-winning show garden at this year’s World Garden Competition in Japan and has just completed a Peace Garden in Lewisham in honour of Nobel Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu. His credentials are impeccable.
Chris will be in Christchurch next week and will present a talk on A Quintessential English Garden next Friday 6 November at 7pm at the Canterbury Horticultural Society Hall, 57 Riccarton Avenue. I encourage you to take the opportunity to hear Chris talk and share his passion for gardening.
Tickets are $20 and available from the Canterbury Horticultural Society at 57 Riccarton Avenue from 9am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, or from the Ellerslie International Flower Show phone 379 4581 or visit the website www.ellerslieflowershow.co.nz
Regards
BOB PARKER
MAYOR OF CHRISTCHURCH
