Yorkshire Garden Wins Gold Medal at RHS Badminton Show

This year’s theme—celebrating the variety of life—was carefully recreated in our canal-inspired garden, aptly named "Where Nature Navigates."

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A Tribute to Britain's Waterways

Our award-winning garden was commissioned by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) for the inaugural RHS Badminton Flower Show, held at the prestigious Badminton Estate. The garden draws inspiration from the picturesque canals of Yorkshire, inspired by my many walks and memories along canals and waterways with my Mum. My Mum volunteered on both the Leeds-Liverpool and Huddersfield Narrow canals, and it was such an important part of who she was. The community of volunteers became close personal friends, sharing a love of nature and contributing to the wider community.

The project pays homage to the Canal & River Trust and the dedicated volunteers who work tirelessly to protect these vital landscapes. The canals and waterways really are important to small villages like Slaithwaite, which celebrates 25 years since the CRT dredged and reinstated the canal

after several decades of dereliction. Since then it has reinvigorated the whole village, which has been voted as one of the best places in Yorkshire to live, not in small part due to it's canal and the recreation it offers.

Collaboration with Four Seasons Landscapes

I collaborated with Four Seasons Landscapes, having previously worked with them on other ambitious projects. I knew their tireless attention to detail and craftsmanship would be essential for bringing my vision to life.

Matthew Lunn, Director of Four Seasons Landscapes, shared his excitement about the project: "We're delighted to be working with Alison to bring 'Where Nature Navigates' to life at RHS Badminton 2026. Although it’s a small space, the challenge of building natural stonework, a towpath, and a wildlife pond in a short timeframe is one we are ready to embrace."

Design Elements and Construction

The garden features a harmonious blend of native wild plants, natural stonework, and a captivating wildlife pond complete with a decorative lock gate.

Including all of these elements in a 6 day build was technically challenging, so we had to think differently.

Building a pond can be time consuming and without knowledge of the soil and subsoil on site, potentially prone to leaks. To get around this we contructed a steel pond liner, which simply needs a hole digging. We also prefabricated the lock gate and metal fixing which secures it to the base of the pond. It was an absolute labour of love by Matthew and his team, and contructed with real oak to weather and crack authentically.

Also, knowing that the site is an unknown, the gravel towpath was contructed in advance to remove the need for groundworks and laying sub-base. The flower show site is part of an estate which supports grazing animals and horses, so we had to be careful not to contaminate the soil with additional materials like gravel. Matthew and the team contructed the towpath on wooden boards which were left to age for several weeks before being transported to site and laid in position.

The wall was taken from Matthews own garden, complete with moss and reconstructed on site by Luke to look like a dry stone wall which has partially fallen down. Apparently its more difficult to build a falling down wall than one which is soild and made to last!

We were able to get pond, path and wall all built within two days, allowing plenty of time for working with the plants.

Planting

The challenges with the garden didn't end there. Planting a wild garden is technically difficult on several counts.

You can't just pop into your garden centre and pick up beautiful established wildflowers. We collected self seeded plants from our own gardens, and nurtured them over many months. Yes, both Matthew and I have had pots of nettles, brambles and all manner of weeds in our gardens.

Wild flowers (especially foraged ones) will flower when they want to, not to schedule. And that means that two successive heatwaves caused our huge collection of common foxgloves to go over before the show. We managed to salvage a handful who clung to a few precious blooms.

Did I mention the nettles and brambles? I won't be forgetting them. It was a right of passage being involved in the garden to be stung, scratched and spiked during the build. By the end, I've been able to hold nettle leaves to little or no effect.

The result

I'd be lying if I said that getting the Gold medal wasn't satisfying. It is! But the real plus for me is being able to invite colleagues from the Canal and River Trust to the garden for them to shake their payment machine at passing punters during the show. They are a charity who are important to me, my family and home community, and its a delight to be able to help them do more.