RECORD NUMBERS OF ENTRIES HAVE FLOODED IN FOR THE BRAND NEW SPA GARDENS CATEGORY, BEING LAUNCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME AT RHS MALVERN SPRING FESTIVAL 2017.
Alongside designing and building a Show Garden at the UK’s leading garden event, one final designer will also be given the once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase at Moscow Flower Show as part of a newly introduced exchange programme. Applications have been flooding in from designers across the world to compete for one of only six places. Entries are still open and will close on Friday 6 January.
Jane Furze, Head of RHS Malvern Spring Festival said: “We are so excited to be launching the Spa Gardens category and cannot wait to see the creativity from new designers blossom at RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017. It’s a real privilege to be working with the Moscow Flower Show to offer an exchange programme that is unlike anything we’ve ever done before. The Spa Gardens category will be a spectacular showcase of our new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival and is a wonderful development for our festival, which is going from strength to strength. RHS Malvern Spring Festival has always been an event to give opportunity to those looking to get into the gardening world and the Spa Gardens category is the ideal forum for new talent to flourish. We are really looking forward to seeing this years entries and look forward to welcoming a new collection of designers to next years event.”
The Moscow Flower Show exchange programme will see one designer invited to build a sponsored garden at the top horticultural event in Russia. The all-new programme invites one Russian designer to build a garden at RHS Malvern Spring Festival and reciprocally, one of the designers exhibiting at Malvern will be given a grant and the Moscow Flower Show organisers’ support to display at the Russian event at the end of June.
Offering a unique platform for emerging talent, the Spa Gardens category will bring to life the new vision for RHS Malvern Spring Festival. The festival’s new vision will reflect the thirst for knowledge, new horizons and innovative technology at the heart of Malvern’s Victorian heritage. Successful Spa Garden designs will sit alongside the festival’s iconic Show Gardens.
With anticipated visitor figures of over 100,000, RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take inspiration from Malvern Spa’s Victorian heyday as a fashionable spa resort – a place where day-trippers descended to take advantage of the clean air and to enjoy the health giving waters amongst the romantic beauty of the hills and into a town of pleasure gardens, assembly rooms and numerous eating-places.
A total of six places are available in the Spa Gardens category, giving up and coming designers a platform to showcase at the landmark gardening and food festival alongside veteran designers and leading talent in the industry. Spa Garden designers are encouraged to revisit the amazing and innovative things Victorians enjoyed in their design. Although, designers must consider much more than a trip into Victoriana! The panel is requesting designers to present their contemporary take on Malvern’s spa heritage and reinterpret it for a 21st Century visitor.
Each selected design will be offered a £5,000 bursary to support the cost of the garden build. Entries to the Spa Gardens category are invited to submit a design for a small 6x6m or 36 sq. m garden. The garden need not be square within that area and can take any shape.
More information on how to apply can be found at: http://www.mjtweaver.uk/rhsmalvern/options.php?id=21
RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2017 will take place from Thursday 11 May until Sunday 14 May. For more information and full winners details from 2016, please call 01684 584900 or visit www.rhsmalvern.co.uk.