Silver Merit win for Horticulture at BBC Gardeners’ World

BIRMINGHAM — The Horticulture team at Oaklands College are proud to report a Silver Merit win for their garden design created for BBC Gardeners’ World.

The team of Level 2 and 3 students and expert tutors returned to the Beautiful Borders competition at the famous gardening show, which celebrates creativity in design in small spaces and new talent to the industry.

A team of expert judges gave their ‘Bursting at the Seams’ design, one of 23 in this specific section of the show a Silver Merit Award for its creativity in working to the brief ‘every space counts’.

After heading to NEC Birmingham to assemble and construct their final design on site, the team’s design faced the judges and a press preview before the four-day show opened its doors to thousands of garden-lovers from across the UK.

Plans for ‘Bursting at the Seams’ which features elevated pedestals and a table tree as its focus point, began at the beginning of this year at their base in St Albans Campus. With support from the College’s carpentry department the frames were created for structure and plants carefully curated to reach their best potential for the June show.

With a big focus on reflection to bring interest to their design, use of glass and metal wrap, down to the silver pebbles and tiny diamantes create interest and sparkle hidden amongst the garden’s planting.

Horticulture Tutor Tee Robertson said: “This is our second time at the show – it offers us as an education provider an amazing opportunity to showcase our skills to a national audience. To be recognised by the expert judges with a Silver Merit is a great achievement.”

“For the rest of the show we’ll be sharing our garden with thousands of the shows visitors over the busy weekend. It’s a great opportunity to put Oaklands Horticulture on the map with gardening fans across the UK!”

You can see photo albums documenting the student’s journey from seeds to show at https://www.facebook.com/gardenlandcapedesign.