The RHS has today announced the recipient of their inaugural Environmental Innovation Award at the Chelsea Flower Show.
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First time garden designer Giulio Giorgi and garden contractor Landesigns received the first ever award in recognition of the efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of their garden the World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden.
The award was open to all the gardens in the Sanctuary Garden and Main Show Gardens categories and has been introduced by the RHS to recognise and celebrate the innovative ways designers and contractors reduce their environmental impact.
Malcolm Anderson, RHS head of sustainability and judge said: “It was a really difficult decision to make but we felt the World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden stood out as a beautifully simple example of merging old techniques with new, where Giulio has used 3D printing to create traditional keyhole gardens.
"The garden has been created using products made entirely from soil and timber and in its construction no power tools have been used, only hand tools, so it is a fine example of how we can design and build gardens more sustainably in the future.”
Malcolm added that this year marked a big shift in the way gardens have been designed and built.
Innovations commended by the judges in the other gardens considered for the award included the use of hemp in the construction of the Stroke Association’s Garden for Recovery designed by Miria Harris and built by Mark Gregory of Landform Consultants, which also included a prototype hemp composite paving never been tried at the show before.
The judges were also particularly impressed with how designers Tom Massey and Je Ahn along with Landscape Associates created the WaterAid Garden with its relocated site at the forefront. The rainwater harvesters in the garden will be freely available from WaterAid so that these can be replicated anywhere in the world.
The medals for the gardens will be awarded tomorrow, Tuesday 21 May at Chelsea Flower Show.
