Gold Medal Garden at Blenheim Palace Flower Show 2004

The garden offers two contrasting but linked rooms in balance, appealing to town and country tastes. The first room is enclosed by a low stone wall with built-in seat and shady modern pergola, whilst the second is enclosed by a woven willow wall with a shady tree seat.

Contrasts are in equilibrium between the two rooms: hard and soft, old materials used in a new way, spiky plants and soft foliage, hot colours, cool colours.

The shady pergola will encourage people to stop and sit and enjoy scents from the climbers and a small trickle of water falling into a reclaimed trough before wandering between the two linked spaces to try the tree seat and enjoy the unusual ceramic sculptures. There are many ways in and easy circulation allows access to all.

The garden structures are built of limestone and oak crafted in a contemporary style to give a strong local distinctiveness. The oak and tensioned steel wire pergolas offer new ideas for plant supports with some unusual planting ideas for climbers.

Reclaimed materials such as glass blocks and steel trellis cables add character and a give new twist to more traditional styles.

In partnership with local craftspeople the garden's ceramic ornamentation is eye-catching and complements the natural materials and drift-style plantings.

Plantings are balanced between the hard and soft feel of each space. Hot coloured, Mediterranean plants surround the pergola on a low bank. Calming blues, mauves, whites and greens and foliage textures fill the soft space. Large drifts of new perennial style plantings with grasses give context to the sculptures at the front