Each year, Eden’s apprentices are set a challenge of creating a show garden with a theme, this year being “recycle, reuse, reimagine”, using primarily components found at Eden. It’s an opportunity for the team of four apprentices to shine and showcase all that they’ve learned.
This year’s garden represents a primary school garden that would be enjoyed by children and pollinators alike, including bug hotels, wildlife habitats, living walls, colourful seating, a raised vegetable bed, composting, water collection and a child-sized play tunnel. Plants include a sensory mix of lily of the valley, colourful blooms of daffodils, soft fury-leafed salvias, gently swaying grasses and insect-friendly pollen providers.
Up to five apprentices join the Eden Project horticulture team each year for a two-year stint, working across the 30-acre Outdoor Gardens, the world-famous Biomes and the wider surrounding Estate.
Yasmin McNeil, Richard Viles, Vicky Carter and Nile Maskell are the team going for gold at this year’s Spring Flower Show, led by Living Landscapes Educator Flo Mansbridge and Living Landscapes Manager Julie Kendall.
Flo Mansbridge says: “It’s wonderful for the apprentices to be able to showcase their talents at such a prestigious show. It’s a great challenge for the team, to work together, compromise and conceive how their ideas can be transported from paper to a 4D 4m by 5m garden. It creates a real sense of pride and achievement.
“Our apprenticeships give people the opportunity to work and learn across all the various unique terrain and climates that the Eden Project offers and several have gone on to continue working with us after completing their two-year course.”
Cornwall Garden Society’s Spring Flower Show is a showcase of the best nurseries, traders and landscape artists and has been held annually for more than 100 years.
