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One of my highlights at Hampton Court is the Conceptual Gardens section. Many of the gardens may look like 'installations' - the 'concept' part dominant over the 'garden' part, but increasingly ideas from conceptual gardens are creeping into the mainstream.
The most obvious example of this is Tony Smith's garden entitled 'The Quilted Velvet Garden' (judged as a Show Garden at Hampton Court 2009). Last year his garden 'Ecstasy in a Very Black Box' about bi-polar disorder was easily the most outstanding of all the Conceptual gardens, a simple black, brick wall enclosure to show the imprisonment of the soul in darker moments, inside bright shards of coloured Perspex on a mound of freshly sprung, lime green lettuce leaves, summing up the ecstasy.
Smith received the recognition he deserved when Quilted Velvet asked him to build three show gardens this year. (Chelsea was the first, Tatton Park will be the third). His second garden, which has just won a gold medal, once again touches you in a way that works on many levels. The theme is an environmental one, highlighting the need to plant new trees as we use up existing forests. 30,000 miniature oaks are encased by broad planks made of green oak, each with a shorter slab set at an angle on top. Three blue cedar trees are surrounded by fallen trees in the middle. The whole garden has a magical feel to it, something you would like to walk into a clearing in the forest and find - natural ma terials very clearly ordered symmetrically, placed there by man. The planks on top face the sun reminiscent of wooden windmills. They stare at the sun but are they beaming from the earth or receiving a message from the universe? Not only would I love to see this structure being moved to a sculpture park or a forest, this garden would also be just as powerful in an open field, standing alone in contrast to the flatness around.
"That's exactly how I always imagine my work" says Smith. "I love doing show gardens but it can be frustrating because they are none of those things - in my head I always see them in a forest, a field or even a white room in a gallery."
Three other honourable mentions in the Conceptual Gardens category:
'It's Hard To See' by Rebecca Butterworth, Victoria Pustygina, Ludovica Ginanneschi is a sunken garden with mirrors lining a cube filled with lush, green planting. The execution was first class (and it was rightly awarded Best Conceptual Show Garden by judges). The message was an anti-materialistic one: the middle part representing the vibrant and beautiful within us all, if we only take time out of the rat race to stop and look inwards.
Concreation by Sim Flemons and John Warland looks at the precarious relationship between man and nature. (Nature, in many cases does a pretty good job at fighting back).
The large, polished concrete plinth with a crack in the middle filled with plants was dramatic and a favourite with many show goers.
Lastly, but always interestingly, was Spaniard Fernando Gonzalez's 'Monstruosa' (Spanish for Monster), a computer generated design painted in silver and planted with carnivorous plants.
The idea was that the tentacled monster from outer space lands on the earth and colonises the carnivorous plants which will help it to take over the world.
There is no doubt that Gonzalez's head is stuffed full of ideas, but the finish on this creation is what really let it down (he received a Bronze medal). To have made this installation in chrome would have been sensational (and prohibitively expensive), but then to have made it in cast polystyrene then sprayed it with silver (the joins in the piece were also rather crude) interfered with the flow of the piece as a whole. Gonzalez has something of a 'devil may care' attitude when it comes to conforming but he is an interesting designer to watch.
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