Worcestershire
WR13 6NW UK
Tel: 01684 584900
For more information please contact:
Sharon Gilbert
Press & PR Manager
Telephone:
01684 584929
Fax:
01684 584930
E-mail: sharon@threecounties.co.uk
Editor's Notes:
The Malvern Spring Gardening Show is a fund raising event and a joint venture of the Three Counties Agricultural Society (Registered charity no: 511868) and the Royal Horticultural Society (No: 222879), and is now in its 24th year.
Launched in 2007, and the first and only one of its kind on the national gardening show calendar, the scholarship scheme is supported by Malvern Spring Gardening Show organizers, the Three Counties Agricultural Society (TCAS) and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).The aim is to fast track one deserving individual each year, for four years, to achieve success in the exciting but tough world of professional landscape design.
Claire has a B.A. (Hons) in Interior Architecture from Brighton University and was formerly an architectural assistant and interior designer with Saville Jones Architects in Sussex. She is a member of the Brighton and Hove Emmaus Goodwill Co-operative (a group of designers, makers and volunteers who produce work with homeless charities to increase the value of donations).She set up Claire Potter Design after winning a sponsorship from NS&I to stage a small edible garden at NEC for BBC Gardeners’ World Live (Garden of the 3 R’s – reduce, re-use, recycle – RHS Bronze and People’s Vote 2008), and says she wants to make eco design accessible to the masses.
Garden Designer Finds Novel Solution To Credit Crunch
Garden designer Claire Potter, who is building a show garden at this week’s national Malvern Spring Gardening Show 7 – 10 May, is refusing to let the credit crunch crisis pour cold water on her dreams of success, by coming up with a novel solution to make ends meet during the long, hard build!
Claire is hoping that her garden, ‘Dancing With The Trees’, will be awarded a Royal Horticultural Society medal, and that she will impress the judging panel in the Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship competition, sponsored by Bradstone and taking place on Thursday, May 7.
But, as an advocate of sustainability, driven to produce everything to the highest possible standard, with the lowest possible impact on the environment, she won’t be snuggling up in a comfy hotel bed at the end of each and every day. Instead, she has built her own accommodation to save on costs – a lightweight, eco-friendly teardrop caravan, pulled by her new company vehicle, a 1965 Morris Minor saloon!
What’s more, should her unique little house on wheels prove a success, it will become ‘Prototype 1’ for a new business venture in hand-built vintage style, truly eco-proper trailers, light enough to be pulled by classic cars.
Claire’s ‘Green Bean Trailer’ features FSC timber throughout, a recyclable aluminium exterior, 85% recycled plastic bottle insulation, a natural rubber floor and counter, vintage reclaimed interior fabric and fittings, and a solar panel to power a small fridge and lighting.
And it seems, she may well be on to a winner. “As far as I know, there is only one other business manufacturing such trailers”, she says, “but mine is a lightweight version. With a massive resurgence in the ‘great British holiday’, the trailer will be ideal for those who don’t want to camp in a tent, but don’t want the expense of a larger caravan.
Building a show garden is an expensive business, and making my own accommodation to save costs, seemed like the perfect solution!”
Claire, from Old Portslade Village near Brighton, in East Sussex, was shortlisted from 45 applicants for the coveted Chris Beardshaw Scholarship; a tailor-made, vocational package of design advice, work experience, educational training and business mentoring, headed up by the award-winning garden designer and broadcast journalist himself.
She is one of ten contenders in the competition and may well have to present her case for the scholarship, ‘Dragon’s Den’ style to a discerning judging panel and a public audience, in the event’s Design For Living Theatre, on May 7, First Day.
Dance is the theme for Malvern’s scholarship gardens this year, and Claire’s garden ‘Dancing With The Trees’ , a serene and shaded juvenile sweet chestnut coppice, is a performance space which interprets the art of dance as a series of movements – of the trees, the planting and even the inhabitants themselves.
In the centre, there are five ‘sentinel’ chestnut poles, each engraved with an excerpt from W.B.Yeats’ poem ‘Among School Children’. Spectators are forced to tilt their heads to read the poem, creating another subtle massed ‘dance’.
Claire’s eco mission doesn’t stop with the caravan either – her show garden leaflet uses vegetable based inks on 100% recycled board, and her garden lighting will be powered by the sun, rather than mains electric, for an evening event.
A photograph of Claire, her caravan and her garden is available in jpeg format. Please contact Sharon Gilbert.
For more information and interview opportunities, please contact:
Sharon Gilbert – Press & PR Manager
Three Counties Agricultural Society
Telephone: 01684 584929 (direct dial)
E-mail: sharon@threecounties.co.uk
Show Web Site and Box Office: www.threecounties.co.uk/springgardening
Ticket Hotline: +44 (0) 1684 584 900/924
Chris Beardshaw’s Office: + 44 (0) 1242 233 311
Web Site: www.chrisbeardshaw.com
PR Contact: Jane Southcott: +44 (0) 1275 852 026
E-mail: jane@janesouthcottpr.com
For further information about Bradstone’s sponsorship of the CBMS
please contact Heather Power at Haslimann Taylor on 0121 355 3446
or email heather@haslimanntaylor.com
Web Site: www.bradstone.com/garden
Released: 09/05/2009