In 2016 while leading a community garden scheme in Kensington and Chelsea we designed and made a vegetable garden for the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. It won a silver gilt but I unexpectedly lost my father during the build up of the show.
My father John Gould was a wooden toy designer and maker and I wanted to make this garden as a tribute to his love of nature and materials and the inquisitive playfulness that all toymakers must have.
A Toymaker’s Garden was awarded a Silver Medal at
The RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2018
The Alpine section takes it’s form from the overflow of wood shavings and off cuts spilling from a hatch at the rear of the workshop. Ideas and waste forming the basis for the new landscape as it evolves.
The pathway to the door is surrounded by a blue ocean of Nigella damascena and Lobelia erinus allowing for a train line to take a tunnel under the sea which has tug boats bodding among the flowers.
The Planting is quirky and fun including some plants which I remember from childhood - Antirrhinums (snapdragons) succulent Aeoniums and Soleirolia soleirolii (mind your own business). The roof of the shed is an inversion of the ground with bonsai trees such as hornbeam, beech and cedar dwarfed by the rising balloon flowers of Platycodon grandiflorus.
Plant list with key for planting plan:
A Aloe vera
Aa Aonium arboreum
AlAnemanthele lessoniana
Am Antirrhinum majus 'Potomac Orange Wonder', 'Rembrandt', 'Defiance'
AnAthyrium vidalii
ArArmeria maritima
C Cereus sp.
CtCerastium tomentosum
DcDianthus caryophyllus
DrPolystichum setiferum 'Herrenhausen'
E Echeveria/Graptoveria
EqEquisetum 'Bandit'
EjEriobotrya japonica
GbGingko biloba 'Mariken'
IpIpomoea purpurea
LLilium 'Kushi Maya'
Ld Lithodora diffusa
LeLobelia erinus
LpLupinus polyphyllus
MhMusa hookerii
NdNigella damascena
PPolystichum polyblepharum
PaPlectranthus argentatus
Pe Panicum elegans
PgPlatycodon grandiflora
QlQuamoclit lobata
SSedum(Hylotelephium) spathulifolium/lidakense
Sc Solenostemon (Coleus)
SsSoleirolia soleirolii
St Stipa tenacissima
Sv Sempervivum 'Purple Beauty'
TaThundbergia alata 'Susan series(white)'
TpTetrapanax papyrifer
Tv Thymus vulgaris
ZZantedeschia albomaculata
B Bonsai trees (6) - Fagus, Carpinus, Fraxinus, Cedrus, Betula
The colour scheme moves from the oranges and browns of desert and grassland through a blue ocean at the entrance to the workshop, to shades of green among prehistoric ferns and Ginkgo and luscious tropical purples and greys of Plectranthus argentatus, Solenostemon and Musa sikkimensis.
My dad began making wooden toys and furniture in his parent’s garage before moving to his own workshop and eventually teaching toy and furniture design at the London College of Furniture.
His toys used traditional materials but embraced new techniques and had a modernist aesthetic.
They were often versions of classic vehicles of the day and his best known pieces were a series of Thames Tug boats which were said to be more often found on the desks of architects than in children’s toyboxes.
A maker’s workshop is homologous to the artists studio. Both a retreat and an inspirational space from which new creations emerge.
I took this as the starting point for a garden which would would both celebrate and explore the RHS’s 2018 theme of evolution.
The garden orbits a central toy workshop in miniature with a train line which emerges from it as a burst of imagination taking a journey through changing landscapes exhibited by varying plant phenotypes. The journey emerges among alpines and moves through desert to grassland then under an metaphorical ocean to prehistoric plants and jungle. The train line returns back in to the workshop among tall climbers representing the peaks where the alpines have evolved. It is a non-linear journey through evolution which will be subtly populated by examples of my father’s toys.
