Sarah Price: Chelsea Flower Show 2023

British garden designer Sarah Price (CMLI) is known for her creative and sensitive approach to garden making. Drawing on a prior training in fine art and a life-long love of wild and natural environments, her gardens have an immersive quality and are often described as ‘painterly’.

Her practice is unusual for its breadth and scope of work. Sarah co-designed the Olympic plantings for the 2012 Gardens at London’s Queen Elizabeth Park and has since worked within varied private, and public realms. These include a fully accessible Horatio’s Garden for a new spinal injury centre at the NHS Llandough University Hospital in Cardiff; a garden for The Exchange, a community led arts and cultural centre in Erith; a summer garden for French luxury design house Hermès, as well as two gardens designed for Maggie’s, a charity that offers free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their families and friends.

Since establishing her practice in 2006, Sarah has developed a garden making methodology that places plants first. For the last five years Sarah has been experimenting within her own garden in Abergavenny, South Wales, developing drought tolerant plantings within waste aggregates, slate, and sands as well as pool, bog and meadow habitats. Material research is equally innovative. Low carbon materials such as cement-free rammed earth walling; coppiced, woven hazel or the reuse of unearthed cobbles or stones are typical of Sarah’s richly textured approach to garden craft and construction.

Price’s designs have collected numerous awards, most notably Gold Medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2018 for her M&G Investments Garden and in 2012 for The Telegraph Garden. In 2016 Sarah won Garden Media Guild’s Garden Columnist of the Year for her monthly Design series for Gardens Illustrated. Sarah Price is a Chartered member of the Landscape Institute (CMLI). She is also a contributing editor for Gardens Illustrated.

In 2020 Sarah was joined in her practice by talented designer Rachel Seaton-Lucas. Trained in geography, Rachel previously worked for the lifestyle brand, TOAST as Art Buyer and Producer of their international photo shoots. Rachel will be supporting Sarah on the creation of The Nurture Landscapes Garden at Chelsea this year.

Ben is co-founder of Local Works Studio, and a designer committed to applying circular economy principles and processes. Ben brings his enthusiasm for vernacular ingenuity and knowledge of material invention to any project, designing new materials, structures, finishes and processes to suit any scale and application. Prior to forming Local Works Studio Ben created and ran a well-respected building conservation company for 15 years, repairing historic buildings throughout the UK and Europe. Ben’s creative practice was informed by an education at the Royal College of Art in London, and he continues to research and innovate within his specialist field, developing new architectural and landscape-led design projects working with local materials, waste, crafts, and people.

At Local Works Studio, Ben leads on material design & fabrication, material research and building craft.

Loretta is co-founder of Local Works Studio. She works with diverse construction professionals, tradespeople and local communities to realise low-carbon public realm & landscape projects that prioritise human relationships. She is a skilled and resourceful maker and designer who enjoys working hands-on in the landscape. She has a background in sculpture and photography with masters’ degree from the Slade School of Fine Art.

Loretta trained in landscape architecture at the University of Greenwich and regularly lectures on architecture and landscape courses in the UK and abroad including: The Bartlett, UCL; University of Greenwich; Central Saint Martins; University of Brighton.

At Local Works Studio, Loretta leads on landscape strategy & design, research and participatory placemaking.

Her designs are wide ranging: from residential family gardens, historic landscapes, public spaces and country estates to restaurant roof gardens, rooftop terraces and urban boltholes. The gardens are notable for the way in which they sit beautifully within their surroundings: rather than following fashions, Jo uses her innate understanding of a place to ensure that the landscapes she creates both work seamlessly within their locations and perfectly for her clients. Her exquisite planting has led her to be considered one of the UK’s leading plantswomen. Current projects include working with Iford Manor in Wiltshire, the restoration of Highgate Cemetery in London with Gustafson Porter + Bowman, and the regeneration of the walled gardens at Water Lane in Kent.

Jo is the recipient of four Gold and five Silver Gilt medals from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and gained the coveted People’s Choice at the first RHS Chatsworth Flower Show in 2017. She is a member of the RHS Gardens Committee and is Garden Advisor for RHS Rosemoor, as well as being a member of the RHS Show Gardens Selection Panel and an RHS Shows Judge. Jo speaks both nationally and internationally, and also tutors at The London College of Garden Design. She is a Fellow of the Landscape Institute and a Registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers. She is a Trustee of Bankside Open Spaces Trust.

The Gardener’s Palette is Jo’s second book; her first, Rhubarb Rhubarb, was published in 2020 and was written with Mary Jane Paterson

www.jothompson-garden-design.co.uk