Traditionalists have criticized this year’s winning exhibit garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, which includes what seems to be a shed and a pile of logs.
Monty Don, a green-fingered guru, is now questioning if the submission is even a “genuine garden.”
With a perfect score of 36 points, the Rewilding Britain garden was named best in show. The project epitomized the trend for ‘uncultivated’ interiors, looking unkempt and complete with a beaver dam and lodge.
Daily Mail columnist Don, speaking during the BBC’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show coverage, said: ‘The question it raises to me is.. Rewilding Britain was beautifully done, but was it a garden?’
He added: ‘It is a show garden and it has a right to win. Whether it is a real garden or not I’m not sure.’
Fellow presenter Joe Swift agreed, saying: ‘To me it’s a landscape, a recreation, but just bringing it to Chelsea technically turns it into a garden.’
Another entry, The Mind Garden by designer Andy Sturgeon, also notched up a perfect tally of 36 but failed to take the top spot following a secret ballot.
Designers Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt swapped traditional blooms for flowering weeds – and included a dam made of branches nibbled by beavers.
It showed, Mr Hunt explained, how the creatures can channel water and prevent flooding naturally. Clutching his best in show prize, he added: ‘This isn’t a political garden. It comes from the heart.’
However he told the Mail that the two BBC gardening presenters had a point. ‘Perhaps they should have a new category of best landscape or habitat,’ he said.
The best in show garden featured plants including Southern marsh-orchids, Tussock sedge, Royal ferns, Aquatic buttercups, Ragged robin, Goat willow and Ranunculus.
The Rewilding Britain charity wants 5 per cent of the country to be returned to an uncultivated state to help tackle climate change.
Rising temperatures in the Arctic were highlighted in John Warland’s entry, with a 15-tonne ice block at its heart.
Other politically engaged gardens include the London Fire Brigade’s garden in Chelsea’s Grand Pavilion which highlights how global warming increases the risk of flooding.
David O’Neill, the brigade’s deputy assistant commissioner said: ‘Last year we attended over 7,000 flood related incidents so it is on the increase for us’ up 12 per cent on the previous year.
He said the LFB wanted people to understand paving over gardens increased the risk of urban flooding, as tarmac and concrete surfaces stopped water soaking into the ground.
He said: ‘It’s always been part of our remit to prepare for reasonable risks. It’s not just about climate, it’s about burst water mains too.’