News

Friday 10 June 2005

Students dig deep for gold at Gardeners' World Live show

Green-fingered Nottingham Trent University students are preparing to go one better and take a gold medal at one of the gardening events of the year. A group of nine students from the Garden Design and Landscape and Amenity foundation degree courses are in the final stages of creating a horticultural haven for this year’s Gardeners’ World Live show.

The students, who are based at the university’s Brackenhurst campus, are keen to improve on last year’s excellent silver medal and take a coveted gold. They have designed an ‘urban retreat’, which is intended to provide a peaceful, relaxing and low-maintenance environment away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Simple lines and structures with organised planting in rows give a sense of ordered peace. Natural materials such as Douglas Fir have been used for hard landscaping features to create the linear decking and pergola. A ‘living screen’ of ivy will act as a backdrop to the design, while perennial evergreen plants and grasses including Carex and Stipa tenuissima offer different textures and shades of green, purple and black.

Julie Dabell, a Garden Design student working on the exhibit, said: “Last year’s students did an absolutely fantastic job in taking home a silver medal but we would be overjoyed if we could go one better and are definitely going for gold. This show provides the ideal opportunity for us to practise the different skills and knowledge we have taken from our courses and means we can pull together all aspects of garden design and plant knowledge.”

ENDS

For more information please contact:

Dave Rogers, Press Officer, on Tel: 0115 848 2650 or via email: dave.rogers@ntu.ac.uk

Or Therese Easom, Press and Media Relations Manager, on Tel: 0115 848 6589 or via email: therese.easom@ntu.ac.uk