The Wildlife Trusts’ show garden, Renter’s Retreat designed by Zoe Claymore has been awarded a gold medal and the Best Get Started Garden award at this year’s RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival.
Renters Retreat, the national Wildlife Trusts’ and Zoe Claymore’s first show garden at Hampton Court puts tenants and wildlife in the forefront, demonstrating the potential everyone and space can have in helping nature recover, especially in urban areas.
The garden features a variety of shade to part shade plants feature, including herbs like coriander, water mint, and sorrel, native shade dwelling plants such as ferns and fruits including wild strawberries and a multi-seasonal crab apple tree, providing habitat and food for wildlife throughout the seasons.
Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, says: “Nature is at the heart of this special creation and it’s already attracting bees and butterflies. This lovely design will inspire all who see it – even those who don’t own a garden – to help nature and climate by enhancing small outdoor spaces. To relax surrounded by such natural beauty and wildlife is great for your health and wellbeing too.”
Situated in the garden’s centre are two dismantlable raised steel beds, between lies an elevated steppingstone, purposefully positioned to centre a person’s mind and body to the present moment when walking through.
The secluded seating area, enclosed by towering foliage affords a moment of peace, creating a space for calm.
Claymore says: “I realised that renting, along with a lack of inspiration about what I could do with the space I had available, was one of the biggest barriers to getting into gardening for me. With so many households renting their homes, I felt a large group of people were being overlooked by show gardens and set myself the goal of creating a ‘get started’ garden that would inspire everyone – not just those that owned their properties – to get gardening!
“I hope this garden inspires people to transform every bit of their outside spaces wherever they live. I truly believe that even small interventions can have a big impact both for nature and people and ownership should not be a barrier to gardening for yourself and the planet.”
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, with 41% of UK species having declined since 1970, and a further at present 15% threatened with extinction.
Claymore’s design aims to empower renters to garden, for themselves and for the environment, combating increasing urban expansion.
Renters Retreat is currently on show at the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival, running through to 9 July, after which it will be relocated and reconfigured at the London Wildlife Trust’s Centre for Wildlife Gardening as an exploration area for school groups.