Selected by 72 students from nine London primary schools, the Octavia Hill Garden, sponsored by Blue Diamond and the National Trust, was selected as the winner at the 2024 RHS Chelsea Flower Show on account of the garden being a good place to play, attractiveness for wildlife and for its general feel-good factor.
One of the junior judges, aged 11, Riley Garvey from Christchurch Primary, commented: “I chose this garden because I like how there’s a lot of things you don’t find out until later on. The planting is on point and it looks like they spent a lot of time on it.”
Miya Beale-Springer, age 11, Christchurch Primary, says: “I love how certain areas provide more shade than others. The seats just sit with the theme really well and you can see that the planting has attracted a lot of wildlife. I can see bees and bugs everywhere.”
The designer of the garden, Ann-Marie Powell, said: “I couldn’t be more delighted. These are the gardeners and the horticulturists of the future and exactly the sort of people we want to be running all over our (RHS The Octavia Hill Garden) garden. It’s a community garden so it was designed with children in mind but not in an obvious way. We don’t need swings and slides always. This is all about plants and nature and them absolutely falling in love with that from as early an age as possible.”
Designer of the WaterAid Garden, Tom Massey welcomed the challenge of having children judge the garden, “It’s great that the kids are judging this year. All gardens should be designed with children in mind to some degree.”