Gardeners World celebrity Adam Frost helped draw hundreds of visitors to the opening of a new show garden at Bridgemere near Nantwich.
Alan Roper, managing director of Blue Diamond, officially unveiled the newest addition to Bridgemere Show Gardens – The Octavia Hill Garden by Blue Diamond Garden Centres.
The new garden is the 16th to join those already at Bridgemere, nine of which are RHS award-winning.
It celebrates Octavia Hill, the co-founder of the National Trust, who believed green spaces and gardens were vital to everyone and features 3,600 native and non-native plants working together for biodiversity and beauty with bold, pollinator-attracting planting.
More than 400 visitors joined the team from Blue Diamond throughout the day to celebrate the unveiling and were treated to a talk from the BBC garden show presenter.
Other special guests included John Ravenscroft, the original owner and founder of Bridgemere Show Gardens, Clare Armstrong, a cousin of Octavia Hill, and children from Bridgemere Church of England Primary School.
Visitors were also entertained with live music from the Jake Leg Jug Band, and interactive entertainers.
The garden had originally been showcased last May at RHS Chelsea Flower Show where it was awarded the augural Children’s Choice Award, People’s Choice Award and a Silver-Gilt medal.
It has then been lovingly, but painstakingly removed and rebuilt over several months, to its now permanent home at Bridgemere Show Gardens.
Alan Roper said: “Having visited Bridgemere Show Gardens over the years, both during John Ravenscroft’s time and thereafter when the gardens went into decline during their ownership under Wyevale Garden Centres, when the opportunity to buy Bridgemere Garden Centre and the Show Gardens came about, I jumped at the chance.
“Although the show gardens make no commercial sense, as they cost much more to maintain than the income they generate, these gardens are a piece of history, and I wanted to not only honour that, but also to add to that history with the addition of new show gardens.”
Most of the plants in the garden are those that featured in the original Chelsea Garden, having been carefully looked after by the Blue Diamond owned, Bridgemere Nurseries, with only a handful replaced after not surviving the move.
Jill Kerr, group relationship manager for Blue Diamond Garden Centres, said: “We had a tremendous turnout to celebrate the garden’s official unveiling.
“It really is a garden for all – people, nature and wildlife and Blue Diamond very much hope that visitors will come to Bridgemere Show Gardens to experience it for themselves.”
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