Beautiful Borders winners announced at Beaulieu!

 BBC TV gardening presenter, Frances Tophill, has presented awards to design teams and horticulture students behind some show-stopping gardens and displays at the BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair at Beaulieu today.

Winner of the Spring Fair’s Best Showcase Garden and a Platinum Award was Nordic Retreat by The Landscape Service, based in Southampton. Designed by Luke Mills, the stylish, minimalist garden is designed to offer a calming space to relax, unwind and rejuvenate, providing temporary respite from the urban environment. It features neutral colours, planting features to create dappled shade, and natural hard landscaping materials.

Best Beautiful Border and Platinum Award winner was ‘Not all those who wander are lost’ by Furzey Gardens and Minstead Trust who provide training and work experience for people with learning disabilities. The Border was inspired by a poem from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, and features plants grown at Furzey Gardens, a stepping stone path, and a grand chair carved from the trunk of an old Elm tree.

The Beautiful Borders competition is a highlight at all BBC Gardeners’ World Events and is designed to provide achievable inspiration for smaller gardens and tricky spaces. Entrants take on the challenge of packing compact 9m² plots with imaginative planting and creative design features. This year’s theme is ‘My Garden Escape’. Spring Fair award assessors for the Beautiful Borders were Ian Hodgson, editor of Garden News, and acclaimed Hampshire garden designers, Anita Foy from Anita Foy Garden Design, and Richard Barnard from Kings Oak Landscapes.  

The Spring Fair’s first ever inter-horticultural college competition was won by students from Kingston Maurward College in Dorset. The college team won Best College Garden and a Platinum Award for A Wardian Garden, a design inspired by the college’s Victorian heritage. Colleges were tasked with designing budget-friendly gardens with a Victorian Garden theme. All the college teams were mentored by award-winning garden designer, Cherry Carmen.

Show Assessor Richard Barnard said: “It’s great to have the colleges here at the Spring Fair. The quality of work is excellent and these brilliant students are the future of horticulture.”

Reviewing all Award entries at the Spring Fair, BBC TV gardening presenter Frances Tophill, said: “I’m hugely impressed with the talent involved and the hard work that has gone into creating these wonderful gardens and displays, with every award richly deserved. I have no doubt that they will inspire thousands of people over the Spring Fair weekend to try something new or different in their garden, veg patch or window box. Whether you’re new to gardening or a green-fingered expert, it’s a great time of year to make garden plans for the summer ahead. The BBC Gardeners’ World Spring Fair really is the perfect place for ideas to blossom and grow.”