Chelsea garden gets a new sky-high home

Cotswold designer Chris Beardshaw’s award-winning Chelsea garden is being given a helping hand by the BBC DIY SOS team this week.

The garden, which was sponsored by Morgan Stanley for Great Ormond Street Hospital, has been transported across London and rebuilt as a roof-top garden at the world famous children’s hospital.

DIY SOS Big Build on BBC 1 tomorrow will see Nick Knowles and his team use cranes to take the garden in over buildings before reassembling it for use by patients and their families.

“It’s bringing new life into the heart of the hospital,” explained Chris earlier this year.

The design of the garden was dictated by the location, which is almost entirely shaded by surrounding buildings.

To cope with these conditions, Chris has created a woodland garden with a top storey of trees, including acers and liriodendron. A light-weight growing medium and sophisticated anchoring techniques will ensure they don’t move in the wind or prove too heavy for the roof. The trees will also be coppiced to keep them small.

Rather than his trademark herbaceous, Chris planted this garden with a mix of shade-lovers, such as ferns and epimedium, with seasonal colour coming from Cornus kousa and C. mas and an emphasis on texture.

At the heart of the original garden at Chelsea was a reflective water feature, but this has been replaced by more planting but the Japanese-style pavilion is still a main element, offering shelter and seclusion.

Great Ormond Street treats children with complex conditions, such as rare heart disease and skin disorders. The garden is designed to provide a place for families to relax and escape from the bustle of the hospital.

“It’s a role that at the moment is missing through much of the hospital,” said Chris. A space in which we can sit and relax, contemplate and perhaps find a new perspective.”

The garden was given a gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show earlier this year, one of a number of top RHS awards Chris has won, including gold in 2015 for a garden that has been relocated as a community space in Poplar, London.

• DIY SOS Big Build will be shown on BBC1 at 8pm on Thursday November 10.

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