CED Stone Inspiring Beautiful Landscapes

RHS Hampton Court Flower Show 2018 - Sponsored Gardens - Part One


Post date: 05 Jul, 2018

We’ve been delighted to have our natural products feature in so many amazing RHS Hampton Court Flower Show Gardens this year!

Our materials have been used in some truly brilliant, creative ways. Here’s our final round up of all the gardens, from 1 – 7:

1.The Health and Wellbeing Garden

Designed by: Alexandra Noble

Contractor: Burnham Landscaping

Awards: Silver Gilt Medal & People’s Choice: Best Lifestyle Garden

Alexandra Noble in the Health and Wellbeing Garden
Alexandra Noble in the Health and Wellbeing Garden

A garden to encourage deep thinking via a continuous path with no start or end point. The visitor moves through the space without a destination – a space which is defined by motion rather than walls. The aim of the garden is to slow one’s pace, mind and encourage a sense of being in the moment. Narrow, tightly curved footpaths circle around different sections of the garden. The paths encourage people to walk through and feel immersed in the garden whilst brushing past the greenery, which would include plants with scented or botanical qualities such as fragrant fennel and mint.

CED Stone Group were delighted to donate our Porphyry Setts, which were used to lay the paths in tight curves. The darker, rustic purple tones and textures of the stone work particularly well in the design, giving a wonderful aged, reclaimed effect.

The paths curve round a range of different features which sit in the middle of the circles, including a wicker sculpture, a curved bench planted with camomile, a round planting bed filled with thyme and a large, still pool. The still water acts as a mirror, perfectly reflecting the sky above, but small streams of babbling water also run through the garden as a contrast. Our polished pebbles look glassy and attractive under the still pool and help to create babbling ripple sounds as the water runs over them in the moving streams. Find out how we worked with Alexandra to choose the ideal product here.

2. The Viking Cruises Nordic Lifestyle Garden

Designed by: Stephen Hall

Contractor: Castle Gardening Landscape and Design Installation

Awards: Silver Medal

A celebration of the Nordic lifestyle, the garden portrays a typical Scandinavian garden, complete with a sauna and plunge pool which are traditionally enjoyed by everyone in the family. Meadow grass is arranged around the sauna and Nordic trees such as silver birch and pines form the woodland edge. Wild flowers and ferns are planted around the garden to reinforce the natural Nordic feel with many culinary or medicinal plants included.

A woodland path leads through the space to a clearing with a stone-paved seating area and a sauna hut with a sedum roof. Stone boulders lead to a wooden-framed plunge pool edged with cobbles and boulders. With Stephen liaising with the CED Stone Landscape teams, we were delighted to donate our Mixed Galacial Boulders, Gabbro Boulders and Porphyry Plattens in various sizes to the garden, along with our Highland Cobbles. You can find out more about how we made these boulders look nice and natural here.

3. The South West Water Green Garden

Designed by: Tom Simpson

Contractor: Rosebank Landscape<="" p="">< b=”“>

Awards: Gold Medal

Promoting the sustainable management of rainwater in our gardens to reduce urban flooding, this garden highlights the importance of ‘Downstream Thinking’, an initiative led by South West Water that explores the different ways that Britain’s gardeners can best manage excess rainwater.

The garden’s curves flow towards a central, circular terrace and water feature. Rainwater is managed by a rain garden that follows the shape of the path leading off the terrace. Permeable paving on the path and terrace helps reduce water run-off from the garden’s hard surfaces. Flood-tolerant planting has been selected, as well as a mix of perennials and grasses that are best suited to well-drained soils and drier conditions.

4. The RNIB Community Garden

Designed by: Steve Dimmock and Paula Holland

Contractor: Mark S Nelson Landscapes & Castle Gardening Landscape and Design Installation

Awards: Silver Medal

Designed to celebrate the RNIB’s 150th anniversary, this garden is a place in which the community can come together in a relaxed and informal space. Corten steel screens, in which windows with filters are cut, allow visitors to experience what it’s like to suffer some of the conditions leading to sight loss. Shade-loving planting contrasts with the sun-loving, fragrant, and sensory types. This contrast between light and dark planting is a key element to the scheme and represents the difference between full vision, partial vision and total sight loss. We donated our striking Firebird Gneiss rockery stones to the garden.

5. The Style and Design Garden

Designed by: Ula Maria

Contractor: The Landscaping Consultants

Awards: Silver Gilt & Best Lifestyle Garden

Apple trees, cosmopolitan planting and mosaic tiles; a perfect design for the modern antique collector! We donated our Silver Granite Kerbing and Silver SuperCEDEC Footpath Gravel to The Style and Design Garden, a contemporary interpretation of an urban orchard garden.

Inspired by the antiquarian’s eccentric lifestyle, travels around the world, and passion for antiques, it is a stitched-together, bricolage world. The aura of this alternative orchard is embraced with the introduction of contemporary materials, cosmopolitan plants, and eclectic collector’s items, showcasing the balance between the old and new.

Apple trees offer character and structure to the space, while naturalistic grasses provide contrast to the theatrical flowers. Key elements include the water feature, timber deck and tiled area.

6. Countryfile’s 30th Anniversary Garden

Designed by: Anne-Marie Powell

Contractor: Sandstone Design

Designed by Ann-Marie Powell and constructed by the team from Sandstone Design, the garden is inspired by the British landscape and the people who live, visit and work in rural areas. The design features a tiered landscape consisting of different sections, each with its own unique character representing a different area of the British landscape, with its individual native stone and planting.

The garden reaches across the Isles, from the Scottish Highlands to the Yorkshire Dales and the woodlands in North Wales to the lakes and rivers of the South. You can find out more about this amazing project here.


7. Anton Chekhov’s Garden

Designed by: Anna Benn & Hannah Gardner

Contractor: Burnham Landscapes

Awards: Silver Medal

This Russian-themed garden is based on the country estate near Moscow where Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), one of Russia’s greatest writers, wrote his famous play The Seagull. Also a doctor, Chekhov treated patients here and was a very keen gardener, planting many fruit trees. Interestingly, the Russian word for garden, ‘sad’, is the same as the word for orchard.

The garden is a place of tranquillity set within a rich natural backdrop. It references the traditional Russian dacha, bursting in a ramshackle manner with flowers and crops, as well as the meadows and woodland beyond. Herbalism, which has played a strong part in Russian medicine and culture, is represented by the medicinal plants grown here.

We were delighted to donate our Silver CEDEC Footpath Gravel to this garden, which perfectly offsets the colours of the herbs and apple trees whilst giving a natural and simplistic feel.