Silver Medal awarded to the Fauna & Flora Garden
The team behind international nature conservation charity, Fauna & Flora, are celebrating winning a silver medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Highlighting the charity’s collaborative conservation work, the Fauna & Flora Garden - which is generously sponsored by Project Giving Back - focuses on the spectacular Afromontane landscape of Central Africa, along with its much-loved inhabitant, the mountain gorilla.
Garden designer, Jilayne Rickards, comments: “This is a fantastic result, and I am very proud to bring the vital work of Fauna & Flora to RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Our aim with the garden is to help people better understand the importance of protecting nature around the world, and how this can be best achieved through collaborative conservation efforts.”
In 1978, following a personal plea from its vice president, Sir David Attenborough, Fauna & Flora helped to establish the Mountain Gorilla Project. Forty-five years on, now known as the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), the project is a shining example of how community-focussed, collaborative conservation can benefit both people and nature. Mountain gorilla numbers have increased to more than 1,000, and the livelihoods of people living closest to the gorilla habitat have improved thanks to the ecotourism that the gorillas attract.
The Fauna & Flora Garden portrays this story by recreating the journey of an ecotourist on a gorilla trek, tracing a rough track through a succession of lush and changing landscapes. The path eventually leads to a gorilla nest – set among bamboo and other typical gorilla foodplants – and a towering waterfall, 5.5metres high.
Cath Lawson, Senior Programme Manager, Eastern Africa, Fauna & Flora says: “Winning a Silver Medal at RHS Chelsea is a wonderful culmination of a fantastic journey and a fitting reward for all the effort that everyone involved has dedicated to bringing this garden to life. We’d like to thank Project Giving Back for giving us the opportunity to profile the vital work of this project, demonstrating that protecting nature through community-led collaboration can yield outstanding results.”
From inception, creating as sustainable a garden as possible, was a priority. Designer Jilayne worked closely with award-winning contractor, Tecwyn Evans, of Living Landscapes, to ensure that the garden met this precedence.
Jilayne adds: “We want this garden to inspire people to think differently; embolden them to reuse and recycle, to increase the biodiversity of their gardens by leaving wild areas, and garden more sustainably using planet-friendly practices.”
Suppliers were thoroughly researched and the carbon footprint of all materials were considered, including location and whether recycled alternatives were available. Entirely cement and concrete free, the garden features minimal hard landscaping, with 85% of the garden planted.
The boulders, a waste product from agricultural farming, will be returned to the supplier post-show and reused on other projects. The recycled topsoil in the garden is peat free and the majority of plants are UK grown (at the Eden Project) chemical free, in peat free soil, recycled or recyclable pots.
After the show, the garden will be relocated to the Tropical Biome of the Eden Project in Cornwall, where it will help to educate and entertain around one million annual visitorsTo find out more about Fauna & Flora and its work to protect threatened wildlife and habitats across the world, please visit: www.fauna-flora.org