Help me to build my first ever mini show garden

Aim

I need your help to build my mini show garden themed around Shakespeare's 'As You Like It' at BBC Gardeners' World Live at the NEC this June

Background

I'm Katie, and here I am back in February on a site visit in the snow to the NEC near Birmingham to see the location of my "Beautiful Border" that was selected by BBC Gardeners' World Live to be presented at the show in June 2023.

https://www.bbcgardenersworldlive.com/whatson/as-you-like-it/

Fast forward to today, and the show opens next week!

You can follow the build on my Instagram @katiesgardens

This is the first mini show garden that I have ever built, having been on a sharp learning curve over the last year in all things horticulture and garden design, studying RHS and design courses at the lovely Winterbourne Botanical Gardens in Birmingham.

The theme and design of the mini show garden

I clearly couldn't abandon my background in theatre entirely, hence the Shakespeare-themed border, and finding a way to weave narrative into planting design! 

My Border is an escape into the storyworld of Shakespeare’s play ‘As You Like It’ - a romance with gender diverse experimentation - where the young people escape from the formality of the court into the freedoms offered by the natural landscape of the forest.

The Court is represented with a formal Tudor Parterre inspired garden. An arch, reminiscent of theatrical staging, leads into a fantasy woodland with flamboyant flowers and a Hawthorn tree, invoking the Forest of Arden where love blossoms. 

The gender diverse experimentation by the character Rosalind, who becomes Ganymede when entering the forest, inspired using the colours of the Trans flag - Pink, White and blue - in both the planting and the arch feature.

The team

There has been a huge amount of preparation put into making this a reality: sourcing plants from local wholesale nursery Fullbrook in Lichfield, commissioning experienced local art fabricator Plane Structure to build and install a custom arch to evoke theatrical staging, and coordinating a fantastic team of volunteers drawn from course-mates and friends who will be helping me to plant out and be on hand to chat to visitors once the show is open.

Your support

I am incredibly grateful for any money you can give in support of making this ambitious, creative, inclusive and celebratory mini show garden a reality!

At the end of the show I will be donating the feature Hawthorn Tree to local charity Fruit and Nut Village to plant in Stirchley or Balsall Heath in Birmingham. Fruit & Nut Village is involved in working with communities to plant and care for orchards and other perennial food spaces such as “Forest Gardens”.

Whilst I am lucky enough to have secured a lot of volunteer labour and free products (including 50% of the plants I need for my show garden on loan from the show sponsor Hedges Direct, and self-binding gravel from Breedon as sponsorship), and some financial support from the GWL organisers, I still have a big cash hole to fill! Any support you can give towards my £500 goal will be gratefully received!!

If there are any surplus funds after costs to produce the show garden have been covered, they will be donated to Fruit and Nut Village.

This project successfully funded on 5th July 2023