It is always a joy to visit the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival and we felt especially privileged to attend in July as the UK began to reopen up after a challenging time.
While it is our wildflowers normally causing a stir at Hampton Court, this year something a little different from Wildflower Turf Ltd was featured…wheat!!
One of 2021’s most talked-about designs, ex-easyJet pilot Felicity O’Rourke’s garden featured a 48-ft long plane wreck (complete with scattered suitcases), crashed into a field of wheat taken from our Hampshire growing site.
Entered into the Global Impact category, Felicity’s garden, called ‘Extinction’, was designed to address the sixth mass extinction threat to our planet and the dangers we face.
The original plan was to use barley as the ‘crash site’ and the Wildflower Turf production team grew a small crop of barley for Felicity using the same methods used to produce Wildflower Turf. However, in the end, it was our traditionally produced field of wheat that caught Felicity’s eye. The bed of wheat for ‘Extinction’ was carefully harvested, collected by Felicity’s father, and transported to Hampton Court to become a key feature in Felicity’s thought-provoking design.
Garnering many column inches over the course of the Garden Festival, the conceptual garden design successfully brought into sharp focus the issue of global warming and the RHS awarded Felicity a silver medal.
Felicity rediscovered her love of gardening and the creativity it allows following her ten-year career as a passenger pilot. She enrolled at the KLC School of Design in 2020 and completed a garden diploma course during lockdown.
Despite being a relative newcomer to the garden design scene, Felicity has already very much made her mark and we look forward to seeing what is next from this fascinating and passionate designer.
Follow Felicity on Instagram here.