The Clints & Grykes Garden

A conceptual garden we have designed for the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2013. Now accepted by the show panel.

Just as limestone pavements were abstracted (removed) from the ground in the quarrying process, this garden is a conceptual abstraction where the shapes of grykes (fissures) and clints (slabs) are formed using concrete from more sustainable limestone aggregate.
The flat, pale grey surface of the pavement hides its planting until you stand directly over it, a metaphor for how often the most beautiful things in life are what we fit between the cracks.

The rare habitats of British limestone pavements were heavily quarried for garden rockeries, until more recent protection. These gardens rarely mimicked the natural beauty of the stone in its original setting. The clints and grykes formed in these places have a ‘naturally ordered’ look that this garden attempts to reflect with abstract lines and curves to form the fissures which are filled with lush planting.