What an interesting bunch us Garden Designers are! Last Friday, the Millenium Gloucester Hotel was packed to bursting with hundreds of us, all dressed up with not a shovel in sight, waiting to hear who had been awarded the coveted ‘Winner’ accolades. It was certainly great to see the comradeship between the garden designers, and our ability as a group to commend and be happy for fellow designers, even when we don’t win that coveted prize ourselves.
I myself was up as a finalist for ‘SGD Best Small Residential Garden’ with our Regents Park House London garden design, but was sadly pipped to the post by Sue Townsend, who took first place with her stunning contemporary curved courtyard garden (see images below). Well done to Sue, it was a beautiful design for a very awkward space.
As the awards were announced I became aware that the female garden designers seemed to be doing remarkably well – and on the final count ten awards went to female designers, stealing the march on the eight which were awarded to male garden designers. A special congratulations to Charlotte Rowe, a leading London Garden Designer, who was awarded not one but three awards for her beautiful Wimbledon, London garden design. It’s great to see female garden designers being rewarded so richly, with such great accolades by the SGD, and one can only hope that given time the sponsors for RHS Chelsea Flower shows will finally see the light and perhaps we may even see a Chelsea Flower Show where main avenue is represented as equally by us girls as the boys. Who knows……..I can but dream!
Oh and finally a big thank you to Stephanie Harrod and her team for a wonderful night, we were there as their guests. Harrod Horticulture were the sponsors of the ‘Historic Garden Restoration’ Award which was won by Dan Pearson.
