Garden festival's exhibits bring nature to roads

Exhibitors at the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival say their work shows that nature can thrive at urban roadsides.

Sussex-based Wild Design Studio won a silver gilt for its garden Life on the Verge, designed to show how roadside verges could promote biodiversity.

Mary-Anne O'Brien, one of the garden's designers, said verges were "often wasted spaces" but there was "so much potential for them to become wildlife havens".

Surrey County Council's project reimagining parking spaces as functional public green spaces was awarded a silver medal.

The Royal Horticultural Society event opened to members on Tuesday and will open to the general public on Thursday.

The garden Ms O'Brien designed, alongside colleagues Robin Dunlop and Laura London, is intended to sit alongside a road in an urban setting.

"There's a lot more going on on your verges than you realise," Ms O'Brien said, adding "the closer you look the more you start to see".

She added that there were "so many spaces within cities and towns", for example roundabouts, that could support greater biodiversity and that was "something we need to be looking at".

The Eastbourne landscape designer said the garden has attracted a host of wildlife - including bees, beetles, and a toad - since it was installed.

The design also contains reflector bollards that also function as homes for bees, as an example of "infrastructure that also supports wildlife".

Ms O'Brien, 41, said the team was "over the moon" to receive the gilt after putting "a lot of hard work" into what is their first ever exhibit.

Surrey County Council's award-winning parking spaces exhibit will be relocated across the county following the show.

One space was created with plants that improve air quality will be moved to Walton-on-Thames while another demonstrating storm-resistant plants will be moved to Cranleigh.

The council will relocated the third space - made from reclaimed materials and aimed at promoting biodiversity - to Guildford.

Council cabinet member for highways Matt Furniss said the spaces demonstrate "a better balance between roads and pedestrians in our town centres".

The Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival has run annually since 1990 but will run every second year going forward according to the RHS, with the next event due to take place in 2027.

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