The RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival is back for 2022 and winners of their garden awards have been announced, along with a full list of the medals awarded this year.
This sees a continuation of the return of RHS shows, after Chelsea Flower Show was held in its usual May slot again this year for the first time since 2019.
Award winners at the 2022 RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
Best Show Garden
The coveted Best Show Garden was awarded to Over The Wall by Matthew Childs Design, a conceptual garden space to highlight the inspiring work of the Over The Wall charity which supports children living with rare and serious illness or disability. The team also received the Best Show Garden Construction award with contractors Yoreland Design, as well as winning a Gold Medal. The garden’s colourful planting features annuals and perennials that symbolise the colours of the charity's ‘Brilliance Beads’ given to children to raise their confidence, along with character pine trees and shrubs that give a contemporary Japanese aesthetic in reference to the garden’s sponsor Takeda.
Best Global Impact Garden
A garden symbolising the on-going conflict in Ukraine and reflecting the country’s culture and tradition won in the Global Impact category. What Does Not Burn created by Ukrainian designer Victoria Maynolo and Netherlands based Carrie Preston, features a burnt-out structure that represents a typical Ukrainian cottage, set within a field of barley interspersed with field weeds and fruit trees. The walls, windows and doors of the building have been burnt away and replaced by rushnyks, a ceremonial Ukrainian embroidered cloth.
Best Get Started Garden
The Get Started category aims to encourage and inspire people of all ages to start gardening, whatever their physical or mental ability, budget or space, with an emphasis on showcasing reliable, affordable and easy to look after planting. As more employees work from home, gardens have become a valuable haven for physical and mental wellbeing during a busy day. Inspired Earth Design’s Lunch Break Garden is a simple approach to planting with only eight varieties of herbaceous perennial making the often overwhelming choice of what to plant more achievable. Created by partners Emily Grayshaw, Imogen Perreau and Jude Yeo, the garden draws on their experiences of working from home during the pandemic and recognising the therapeutic benefits that gardening offers. The designers also achieved one of only two Gold medals awarded by the judges.
Best Construction in the Global Impact or Get Started category
Best Construction in these categories was awarded to The Wooden Spoon Garden by Toni Bowater and Lucy Welsh with contractors Lifestyle Gardens Design & Build to deconstructs the conventional principles of a garden and re-imagines it to encourage those who might be afraid of gardening to have fun by interacting with elements such as a bird perch and windmills. After the festival, the garden is being adapted for inclusion in a sensory garden at a special needs school in Kent.
Full list of medal winners
Gardens that won Gold at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival:
- Lunch Break Garden by Inspired Earth Design
- Over the Wall Garden by Matthew Childs Design
Gardens that won Silver-Gilt at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival:
- The Wooden Spoon Garden by Toni Bowater and Lucy Welsh
- What does Not Burn by Victoria Manoylo and Carrie Preston
- #knollingwithdaisies by Sue Kent
- The Blue Diamond Group's Beautiful Abandonment Garden by Blue Diamond Group
Gardens that won Silver at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival:
- Turfed Out by Hamzah-Adam Desai
- A Journey by Katherine Holland
- Gift the Future: MacMilan Legacy Garden by Sean A. Pritchard Studio
- The SunsLifestyle 'Outdoor Living' Garden by Consilium Hortus
- The Joy Club Garden by Zavier Kwek
- The John King Brain Tumour Foundation Garden by Rhiannon Williams
Gardens that won Bronze at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival:
- Connections by Ryan McMahon
- Sunburst by Charlie Bloom & Simon Webster
