Landform Blog

Tag Archives: Nigel Dunnett

Blue Water Garden – Less than 2 weeks to go!

May 09, 2012   admin   No comments

Progress so far...

What difference a week makes?

With less than two weeks to go(!) the build is coming on nicely: the dry stone roof on the Trulli Building is about half way to completion and the Monocouche rendering of the walls has begun.

Nigel Dunnett has been up to Lindum Turf in York, to have a look at the bespoke native/exotic meadows for the RBC Blue Water Garden.  These have been made up according to Nigel’s experimental perennial seed mixes, and grown for the last year as pre-vegetated perennial mats, ready to be planted on site as ready-made ornamental meadows.  It’s very exciting because the meadows are just coming into flower, and should be perfect for Chelsea!




Within Nigel’s special mix the Verbascum phoenecium ‘Purpurea’, Knautia arvensis, Linum perenne, and Dianthus carthusianorum are starting to flower. Can’t wait to see the finished planting!

 

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Blue Water Garden – Day One!

May 02, 2012   admin   No comments

Well – it’s all happening!

Yesterday (Day Zero) our Landform foremen Rich & Mark B, and Ed, from the Landscape Agency, were busy setting out.  As you can see – they were also avoiding small swamps on the plot! We are next to the Rock Bank Restaurant at the south end of Main Avenue, to help you get your bearings!

Blue Water plot under water on "Setting Out" day!

And – what difference a day makes! Day One and all the foundations for the Trulli Building and the water feature have been excavated.  The Team Tea Shed has been errected!

Day One on site at RHS Chelsea

Meanwhile – quite a coup for Nigel Dunnett and the Planting Team: we have 550 lilies being delivered.  Just need to make sure they are at peak for the judging. If we can pull it off, no one will have seen anything like this before!

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The Blue Water Garden – Final Preparations

April 25, 2012   admin   No comments

We can’t believe that the Build-up for Chelsea Flower Show starts a week today!

We’re busy completing orders of materials and carrying out general housekeeping like getting parking to the showground organised, our construction signs printed up  - even making sure our Team will have plenty of tea and coffee for their breaks – and washing up liquid to clean the cups!

Meanwhile Nigel Dunnett and Ed Payne from The Landscape Agency came to visit us this week, to go through the final preparations before we start on site. They had a productive day going through the plans and the details, but they also came to inspect the samples we have at the yard.

Here is Mark showing the dry stone roofing sample and stone for the Trulli Pavillion, and with Catherine and Ed looking at plans:

Nigel has been busy making the final tree selections at Hilliers Nursery. Among the specimens he has chosen the beautiful and impressive, but little-know, upright form of our native Field Maple – Acer campestre ‘William Caldwell’.  These will be planted in a strip along the side of the garden.

Nigel with the Acer campestre 'William Caldwell'

He also viewed the Italian cypresses (photographed here with Jim Hillier) which will punctuate the formal terraces.

 

Nigel with Jim Hillier & Italian cypresses

And also seen – a special form of Prunus serrulata, which is a stunning multi stemmed tree with glowing bark.  These will frame the Trulli Building at the top of the garden.

Prunus serrulata for framing the Trulli Pavillion

 

 

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RHS Chelsea 2011 Medals Day

May 24, 2011   admin   No comments

With over a year of preparation and only a few weeks to construct these temporary gardens, the gardens are completed.  The Queen has visited and the results are in!

Mark Gregory and Her Majesty The Queen with Nigel Dunnett at the New Wild Garden

GOLD for the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne – Australia Garden

SILVER GILT for the Royal Bank of Canada – New Wild Garden

We are really pleased with our results and hope that all the show visitors will continue to enjoy the gardens throughout the week.

Here’s a glimpse of some of the celebrities we spotted yesterday!  Hope to have some pictures of Mark Gregory meeting the Queen later on…

Mark cleaning the pools before the Queens visit!

Nigel Dunnet, Royal Bank of Canada sponsors and Matthew Wilson

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New Wild Garden – 3 days until judging!

May 20, 2011   admin   No comments

The heat is on!  3 days to go until judging and things are starting to fall into place on the New Wild Garden.

Nigel Dunnett is on site planting and finalising the last few details.  Nigel is pleased with how the garden has progressed and says that it has exceeded his expectations.

Nigel Dunnett on site planting.

The Habitat Walls are completed and planted – so things are really starting to take shape.  Just got to fill the pools now…so more worry as we wait to complete the water features!

Peaceful in amongst the Silver Birch trees...

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The New Wild Garden

May 06, 2011   admin   No comments

Led by award-winning landscape designer Nigel Dunnett & The Landscape Agency, the Royal Bank of Canada New Wild Garden will be RHS Chelsea’s first full-scale “rain garden”, designed to capture and use every single drop of rain that falls on it.

The same team also collaborated on the recently-opened RBC Rain Garden at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) London Wetland Centre as part of the RBC Blue Water Project.

The RBC New Wild Garden brings together two major themes in British gardening in the last 100 years: the Arts and Crafts ideal – celebrating the artistic and painterly use of plants, combined with high quality and traditional craftsmanship, local materials and strong sense of place – and the wild garden – celebrating the beauty of nature, and the naturalistic use of garden plants.

The rain garden element is in keeping with the goals of the RBC Blue Water Project, a wide-ranging, 10-year global commitment to help protect the world’s most precious natural resource: fresh water.

Designed by Nigel Dunnett at The Landscape Agency

Landform Consultants were brought onboard to carry out the build of this project at the Chelsea Flower Show and the build started on Friday 6th May!

The build at Chelsea Flower Show will be led by our foreman Richard.

We have been working with our team and specialists to create the habitat walls, the circular pools and recycled sea container garden building since Autumn 2010.

The garden will have a permanent home at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust’s headquarters at Slimbridge in Gloucs after the Chelsea Flower Show.

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