Gardening Scotland offers £2,000 carrot to show garden designers

The organisers of Gardening Scotland are calling on the landscape industry in Scotland to take full advantage of the opportunity offered by the country's only national horticultural event as a place to showcase their talents to the public.

Thirty five thousand people visit the show every year and organiser Martin Dare says it provides the perfect shop window for garden designers and landscaping companies to engage with potential customers.

Now, in an attempt to entice new designers to become involved and to encourage previous participants to create even better exhibits than before, Gardening Scotland is offering a £2,000 incentive for the most outstanding plan for a show garden.

The winning design will be chosen by a panel of leading industry figures whose criteria will be to find a show garden that makes excellent use of plants and which will also appeal to the public.

And as well as offering the award, Gardening Scotland is also running a Show Garden Design Forum on Thursday, 28 November at Oatridge College near Broxburn.

Taking part will be Dougal Philip and Lesley Watson of New Hopetoun Gardens, Ann Burns of Oatridge College and Ally Bruce of Dundee College, who have all created award winning show gardens at Gardening Scotland.

Martin Dare says: "We want to impress upon designers the benefits of doing a show garden at Gardening Scotland. We know from those who have done it successfully in the past that it can result in lucrative commissions and long-term work and so we want to create the right conditions that will encourage high quality show gardens at Gardening Scotland 2014 and beyond."

Meanwhile tickets to Gardening Scotland 2014 will go on sale from 1 November following last year's successful early ticket launch aimed at achieving pre-Christmas sales.

Gardening Scotland is Scotland’s national gardening and outdoor living show. In 2014 it will take place from Friday, 30 May until Sunday, 1 June at The Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh.

Website: www.gardeningscotland.com

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