Congratulations to James Basson, a former Greenwich student, for his award-winning design for the 2012 Chelsea Flower Show. The Youtube video was produced by Renault, who also sponsored the garden. Renault find a parallel between his design and their new Twizy electric car. Let’s hope this starts a new trend for industrial conglomerates sponsoring garden design and landscape architecture projects. I have some suggestions for potential Chelsea Fringe sponsors in London.
AND congratulations to James on winning a Gold Medal in Japan for his Dulce et Decorum est – at the Gardening World Cup, at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park. Sorry I could not find a Youtube video of the design but you can read about it here. James specialises in low maintenance dry gardens. See his website.
Haruko Seki, another former Greenwich MA Landscape Architecture student and in the same year as James, also had an excellent design at the Garden World Cup show in Japan. You can read about it here . She was very unlucky not win a Gold Medal at Chelsea in 2008 for her “Silver Moonlight” design – or, as I would put it, the judges made a serious mistake in not giving her a gold award. The problem is that the team who judge the garden designs is dominated by horticulturalists, as Tim Richardson has often pointed out. It’s like asking shoe makers or dress makers to judge Strictly Come Dancing. Not complete madness, but very near it. See the Studio Lasso website – and here is a photo of Haruko’s design: