Jamie Butterworth – Green Living Spaces, RHS Malvern

If you’ve never been to Malvern before, you should really consider coming. Located under the stunning Malvern Hills, this has to be the most gorgeous rural location for a Flower Show you could think of. This year, the RHS has supported a new and exciting judged garden category designed to showcase how to garden when you don’t have a garden. With 37% of the British population living in rented accommodation, gardens are becoming fewer and smaller, and yet the need for green spaces in our lives couldn’t be more important. Plants are essential to absolutely everything; they improve our lives, change lives, and save lives. It is essential that we find new and exciting ways in which we can grow plants in our smaller spaces; be it in balconies, patios or even just on a windowsill. If you have a window, you can grow something. And this is exactly what the new ‘Green Living Spaces’ category hopes to explore; new, fresh and exciting ideas. The category will be home to four amazing and unique gardens, each designed by a different designer to highlight just how creative a compact space can be. Each of these gardens is 5m x 3m, using materials and plants that work perfectly for smaller spaces. These four gardens will be linked by a house that will be full of ideas for filling your home with house plants, and bring the outdoors inside.

Anne Keenan’s ‘At Home - Grow, Dine and Relax’ is designed to reflect the needs of a young design-savvy couple living in a contemporary urban flat with a spacious balcony. This garden is a cool, creative, affordable outdoor space for entertaining friends and having fun.

Sebastian Conrad has designed 'The Urban Escape’. Both modern and sustainable, this space has been created as a place of rejuvenation and creative stimulation; for an artist, by an artist. The garden mixes both inside and outside living space, with bold and fluid lines creating a sense of movement. Visitors can experience the journey from soothing tranquillity to energising inspiration within the voyage through the garden.

Andy Bending has submitted ‘The Salad Deck’. Designed for busy young professionals, this garden demonstrates the potential of growing-your-own food in a small, multi-functional space. It is designed as a haven of self-sufficiency, rich with scented, colourful herbs, salad leaves and edible flowers. Perfect for those foodies out there!

Elaine Portch has designed ‘Outside Number 39’; a quirky urban balcony forms part of the first home of two young professionals. With an ever-expanding collection of houseplants, herbs and windowsill chillies, this garden lends itself to budding plant enthusiasts and keen cooks, longing for some outside green space. Its not often I get to be involved with the very beginning of a show garden build; normally I see the gardens once most of the hard landscaping and building works have been completed, turning-up to start with the planting. So, I am really enjoying the opportunity to be here from the very first brick being laid. The Malvern Show runs from the 10th of May until the 13th, and we’d love to see you on site if you can make it! Keep an eye out on Social Media to keep up-to-date with the build’s progress. I should get back to the build, the builders are asking where their cup of tea is…