RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival
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The South Oxfordshire Landscape Garden

Show Gardens

Did you know...

  • The structural focal point of the garden, the bench, is topped with Scottish oak and supported by 60 kilos of staddle stone inspired supports
  • Delicate and thin Flemish bricks make up the permeable paving and backdrop to the garden, both set into a mild-steel frame and bedded into sand
  • The stream through the garden is a 'trick of the eye' - it's been designed not to flow under the brick paving - instead the pools finish with a 10cm recess hidden by the brick terrace

About the garden

Inspired by a stretch of the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, this garden is in essence a recreation of that location in miniature. The brick terrace and wall reference a local Brunel railway bridge. Two rills suggest the Thames, and the large swathes of sedge are inspired by the planting along the floodplains. Colourful drifts reference the wildflowers thriving along the Thames’ path, and clipped topiary suggests blocks of shrubs spilling over the riverbank.
 
A handmade oak bench, using pre-cast concrete ‘staddlestones’ as legs, mimics those used in local barns and often found lining village roads

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All Show Gardens

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The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.