June 2006

BARDON AGGREGATES ‘ROCKS’ THE CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

The ‘Walking Barefoot with Bradstone’ garden has been awarded a gold medal at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show – thanks to a ten tonne, three metre high star attraction from Leicestershire – a giant natural stone boulder.

Extracted from Bardon Aggregates’ Bardon Hill quarry the enormous piece of granite was transported to London to be the centrepiece and focal point of its show garden.

Jonathan Campbell, site manager at the Bardon Hill quarry said: “Being a solid rock, the boulder weighed as much as 10,000 bags of sugar. Although it was difficult to transport due to its size and weight, when we did get it down to Chelsea it looked superb and made a real impact.”

Created by first time Chelsea designer, Sarah Eberle in collaboration with Andrew Herring, the contemporary garden celebrates hard landscaping and textural planting.

Sarah Eberle says: “As a first time Chelsea designer, it was a very proud moment winning a gold medal. This is a great achievement and reflects the hard work and dedication expressed by the team in creating the ‘Walking Barefoot with Bradstone’ garden.” 

Jonathan concludes: “It’s a great feeling to see how the rock has played a dramatic role in the garden. Speaking to a numbers of visitors, you could see people’s passion for using natural materials in the garden and all the hard work that has gone in to creating, developing and building this design.”

An Aggregate Industries business, Bradstone has also been involved in the development of a comprehensive range of source control sustainable drainage systems (SUDS) to assist the safe management of surface water.

This unique concept allows surface water to be drained and retained in channels underneath hard landscaping, which can be used to water the garden as required.

 

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