{{image2-a:r-w:200}}Designed by the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) multi-award-winning garden designer Paul Hervey-Brookes, the Quarry Garden will be the largest exhibit at the RHS Chatsworth Flower Show, from 7 to 11 June.
The garden will combine impressive stone features with colourful horticultural displays, and will celebrate the “21st century iteration of what quarrying means to us today”, IQUK President Miles Watkins explained.
“One hundred years ago a group of four quarriers laid the foundations for setting standards of professional development in the minerals extractives sector,” Watkins said.
“The Quarry Garden reflects the brave new world of quarrying. It features stunning rock showpieces, such as the cut stone vertical rill that forms an outer boundary of the garden. This is softened by the wealth of planting that includes species commonly associated with the natural recolonisation of old quarry sites.”
The standout feature of the Quarry Garden design will be a 15m wide x 3m high sculpted boundary wall called “Passing Light”.
This will feature a series of horizontal fissures that will enable visitors to view the garden through the wall. The stone from the wall has been quarried from the Chatsworth estate’s Burntwood quarry, using traditional techniques.
The Quarry Garden will also feature a concrete pit with freestanding walls and metal struts, and a habitat creation of the plant species that would be found in both active and former quarry sites.
Engage and inform
Watkins said the Quarry Garden aims to engage and inform the general public about the nature of quarrying in the UK and internationally, and its relationship with local communities and ecosystems.
“A huge number of quarrying sites in the UK and across the world are converted into beautiful nature reserves for the wider community to enjoy, leaving something behind for future generations. We want to emphasise this message to those who might not be aware of the many ways in which the quarrying community has a positive impact on our world,” Watkins explained.
{{image3-a:r-w:200}}Hervey-Brookes is a highly respected, award-winning designer with a strong reputation for classical English landscapes and gardens that contain multi-layered habitats and spaces.
He has worked on a diverse range of public landscapes and private gardens in the UK and internationally, including four show gardens at the UK’s Chelsea Flower Show, New Zealand’s Ellerslie Flower Show, the 2014 Garden World Cup Japan and the USA’s Philadelphia Flower Show.
“Working with the IQ on this project has been a fantastic journey,” Hervey-Brookes said.
“My work as a garden and landscape designer is highly diverse and it has been an exciting new challenge to create something that both commemorates IQ’s centenary year and demonstrates the importance of quarrying in our world.”
The IQUK plans to repurpose the garden and the sculpture at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, after the RHS show.
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