The award-winning horticulture department at Warwickshire College have entered an unusual design into this year's BBC Gardeners' World Live.
The college's garden design students designed an evolutionary garden based on the theme of creation.
The garden was then made for the five-day show at the NEC and won a silver award.
|  | Creation garden design |
The college will be delighted with the silver award, although they're no strangers to success.
The achievements of Warwickshire College's horticultural department have been very impressive over the last couple of years.
In 2000, the college won gold medals and a silver medal at BBC Gardener's World Live.
In 2001, they won a silver gilt at the Stoneleigh Amateur Gardening Show and a silver medal at the Malvern Spring Gardening show.
In 2002 at Chelsea, the college won a silver medal and a coveted BBC People's Award as well as gaining a silver medal at BBC Gardeners' World Live.
First and second year HNC Landscape and Garden Design students came together for the show.
Students worked in small groups to interpret the theme of creation and the best aspects of each design were then brought together to make the final garden plan.
Although working independently, there was a striking similarity between several designs, like the inclusion of a spiral pattern, evolution in planting and the use of water. All these strong themes made it into the final garden design.
See the full design by pressing the images button at the bottom of this page.
|  | Artist's impression of the garden centrepiece |
Visitors enter the garden via a path that leads them to the centre of an unfolding spiral wall representing a curve of life.
This logarithmic spiral is found in many natural forms including the shells of amonites, the arrangement of petals on a flower and the unfurling pattern of a fern leaf.
The spiral is used to guide the visitor around the garden and represents the passage of time from the earliest moments of creation through to the present day.
Primeval pool and lava platform | |
Flowing around the base of a sculpture is a primeval pool - boiling and steaming. The surrounding planting suggests the earliest plants to evolve from this primeval 'soup' - mosses, ferns and horsetails.
The main colour theme here is green - as there would be no flowering plants, and the atmosphere is dark and mysterious. From this central pool a stream flows - following the curve of the spiral wall and the pathway through the garden.
While the journey around the garden continues, as does the passage through time and the planting becomes more evolved.
By the time the path reaches the other side of the garden, the planting is full of colour showing the evolution of plants and ultimately the hand of man in plant selection and breeding.
At the far side of the garden, the stream empties into a pool. The visitor then stands on an area of paving formed to look like solidified lava. This is to act as a reminder that although the planet has evolved, the basic forces of creation are still at work.
|  | Rachel De Thame, one of the presenters at BBC Gardeners' World |
Warwickshire College's creation garden was shown in the Design Area of BBC Gardeners' World Live 2003, which was at the NEC on 11-15 June 2003.
A number of other colleges had gardens at the show, but Warwickshire College's really pulled in the crowds with its unusual theme and planting.
We congratulate them on an excellent design and wish them well with all their future projects.
Press the images button below to launch a pop-up window showing the garden designs in full.
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