THE FAUNA & FLORA GARDEN ON MAIN AVENUE, CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW RECEIVES SILVER MEDAL
The Fauna & Flora Garden is based on their highly successfully Mountain Gorilla conservation project spanning three African countries – Rwanda, DRC and Uganda. It depicts a typical eco-tourist’s trek starting with the human utilised land of medicinal garden and kiosk selling artisanal goods, through the boundary wall and into the protected forest area where a gorilla might be found.
This garden had sustainability at its heart – every design and construction decision came back to the same question “what is the most sustainable way to do this?”. The garden was cement and concrete free (no mean feat considering the top of the water feature was at 5m height!), the hidden retaining wall at the back of the garden was soft engineered and allowed for additional planting, soil for the increase in level was from everyone else’s dig out, boulders were a waste product from agricultural farming in Scotland and returned to supplier after the show, majority of plants were grown by The Eden Project (chemical and peat free in recycled or recyclable pots) and the garden is now installed in the Rainforest Biome at Eden – nothing was sent to landfill.