Staff at a Gloucestershire garden centre, were celebrating last month, after hearing about one of their colleague’s national gardening achievements.
Paul Hervey-Brookes, who works as the Horticulture Manager at Wyevale Garden Centre – Nailsworth, won a bronze award for his show garden at the recent Malvern Spring Gardening Show and helped garden designer and television personality Chris Beardshaw prepare for the Chelsea Flower Show, which took place from May 19 – 23.
Garden centre manager, Kevin Brindley said: “Paul won the Chris Beardshaw Scholarship at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show. He was one of 10 candidates who entered to win the 12 month scholarship scheme, which will consist of working alongside Chris for one year and gaining advice on setting up, running and marketing a business in landscape design.
Thirty-year-old Paul was sponsored by the Wyevale family of garden centres, for the garden he created at Malvern.
The Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship is a scheme that was set up by the award-winning garden designer and TV personality in 2007 with the support of the RHS, the Three Counties Agricultural Society and sponsor Bradstone.
Paul, who has been the Horticulture Manager at Wyevale Garden Centre – Nailsworth for the past 15 months, trained at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and won a Silver Gilt award for a garden at the Malvern Autumn Show last year (2008).
He designed his garden for the 2009 Malvern Spring Gardening Show in one day and named it ‘Il Ballo Della Vita Humana’ or ‘A Dance to The Music of Time’ after a classical painting by Nicolas Poussin.
Paul was able to choose any plants he needed from the Wyevale family of garden centres and he decided to use those with rich purple and silver flowers and foliage including tulips, alliums, geraniums, dryopteris and betula.
