RHS Hampton Court Palace results Words and pictures by Mandy Bradshaw

Great British Life: Martyn Wilson. Pic by Mandy BradshawMartyn Wilson. Pic by Mandy Bradshaw (Image: Mandy Bradshaw)

Cotswold designers have been touched with gold at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show.

Cotswold Life columnist Paul Hervey-Brookes took the top award for his travel-inspired garden for Viking Cruises and Martyn Wilson won his first RHS gold with a garden highlighting the beauty of brownfield sites and their regeneration.

Stroud-based Paul was delighted with his award – his ninth gold medal in as many years and sixth consecutively. It comes just weeks after he won gold and Best in Show at RHS Chatsworth.

“All the things I’ve never quite done particularly well seem to have manifested themselves in this garden – things like triple arches and Persicaria bistorta,” he said with a smile. “I’m really glad to have laid a few old ghosts to rest.

Great British Life: Paul Hervey-Brookes' garden at Hampton Court. Pic by Mandy BradshawPaul Hervey-Brookes' garden at Hampton Court. Pic by Mandy Bradshaw (Image: Mandy Bradshaw)

“I’m also thrilled for everybody involved because you cannot make a garden on your own.”

Martyn, who builds gardens across the Cotswolds, said he was “chuffed” with his gold award for just his fourth show garden and first appearance at Hampton; he has previously won bronze, silver, silver-gilt and the People’s Choice at RHS Malvern.

“I’m so pleased. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of people have supported me.”

His garden was built by Pershore-based landscape design firm Keyscape, and students from the Cotswold Gardening School, where Martyn studied garden design, also helped during the garden’s construction.

Meanwhile, ‘Not for Sale’, a conceptual garden sponsored by Cotswold Wildlife Park and animal conservation charity Tusk Trust, won silver. An archway of 200 tusks representing the average number of elephants killed by poachers every day in Africa ran alongside an elephant’s skeleton.

The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show runs until July 9. For more details, visit www.rhs.org.uk