Contractor Dan Riddleston of Bowles & Wyer Contracts will be keeping Pro Landscaper in the loop as he prepares for the Linklaters Garden for Maggie’s at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year, designed by Darren Hawkes and sponsored by Linklaters.
“Twenty-five years since I built my first RHS Chelsea garden, I’m back again. This year I’m working with garden designer Darren Hawkes to build the ‘secret garden’ he has created for cancer care charity Maggie’s.
The garden started life some time ago. Back in 2015, having completed Darren’s garden for Brewin Dolphin, we looked down on the garden from the top of Rock Bank, ruminating on this wonderful view that could never be seen by the general public.
Darren and I got together to figure out how it might be possible for the public to view a garden from above, whilst keeping it secluded from the front. At the same time, Darren started talking about a garden for the new Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centre currently under construction at London’s Barts Hospital, and the idea was born: an enclosed ‘secret garden’ offering a tranquil green space away from clinical hospital areas.
So with a design in mind (including a 3m high perimeter hedge), growers were contacted and Darren began to visit nurseries. A few months on and a similar team to our 2015 garden has been assembled. Trees and hedging have been sourced from Deepdale, and Kelways is growing the majority of the remaining plant stock.
On the ground, the team will be headed up by Jim Brasier and Tony Beach, with great support staff, including some of Darren’s landscaping team from Wheelbarrow and our master bricklayer, Wayne Monk. Jo McGee will be back in planting week to keep a cool head.
There are new suppliers, too; a joiner local to Darren has started on the ornate timber gates, and a precast concrete fabricator has been chosen to create the garden’s key features, which will come from a single cuboid of basalt concrete broken apart to form paving, benches, a building and a water feature. Darren and the team in Wales have been progressing with detailing.
More on that, and the 3m hedge, next month…”
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