Future Gardens
If you are looking for beautiful,
thought provoking and educational gardens that have something for all the family
then you couldn’t do much better than to visit the Butterfly World Project near
St Albans.
Forming the first phase of the project, twelve designer show gardens demonstrate
that sustainability can co-exist with innovative, contemporary design. Unlike other
show gardens that are built to last only a few days, these are designed to remain
from June to October so giving the plants a chance to follow their natural seasonal
cycle.
Over 100 designers submitted their ideas for this year’s opening, with the selection
panel (which included James Alexander Sinclair, Andrew Fisher Tomlin and Cleve West)
looking for pioneering garden designs that would acknowledge the fragility of the
environment and fire the imagination of all generations visiting the event.
Whilst all the gardens have an environmental theme, each has its own unique style
and statement to make. The whole site is laid out to form permanent shapes that
reflect the anatomy of the butterfly and the layout of these gardens forms the body
of a caterpillar. A winding path allows the visitor to move from one to the other,
giving access through each which is another major difference to the normal show
garden (all except one are accessible by wheelchair).
These temporary gardens are joined by several permanent gardens some of which are
bound to appeal to the younger members of the family. Three Leaf gardens include
Through the Flowerpot that aims to show the garden from an insect’s point of view
and includes giant terracotta pots, seed packet and hand fork. The Theatre of Insects
has boundaries constructed from gabions filled with man-made objects from bricks
to bicycles that become homes for insects. The Spangle Gall garden contains a series
of large raised beds built to resemble galls within a leaf each planted with it’s
own individual theme. Children will also love running around the Proboscis Walk,
a spiral that at its centre has a nectar garden.
Visiting this Project during the main weeks of summer is to be highly recommended.
Twenty acres of the site have been planted with 65 different species of cornfield
annuals and is a site for sore eyes. The 65 species currently in bloom come from
the UK, Europe, South Africa and America and include Californian bluebells, Mexican
hats, poppies and lupins. In future years it is planned to sow with native perennial
wildflowers that will attract domestic butterflies, bees and other insects to complement
the tropical butterflies.
For 2009, with only the base of the biome construction completed, the owners have
cleverly used the 100m diameter space to provide sunshine, even on a cloudy day.
Apart from an unplanted area in the middle that forms the shape of a butterfly in
flight, the area has been filled with sunflowers. This is the sight that greets
the visitor as they exit the existing butterfly house and despite being part of
a building site it really takes your breath away.
The gardens are open until 4 October 2009 and will reopen in June 2010. The world’s
largest butterfly dome will be completed in 2011 and will house 10,000 tropical
butterflies and moths and will also include hummingbirds, scorpions, spiders and
giant leaf cutting ants. This will complete the £25 million world-class visitor
attraction, which will then be open twelve months of the year. It’s even worth visiting
just to see the toilet and office blocks – in the shape of giant beehives they look
brilliant!
Wildflower Planting
Release Garden
Designers: Michelle Wake and Chloe Leaper
Urban Greening
Designers: Andy Sturgeon
Theatre of Insects
Designers: Ivan Hicks
Narratives of Nature
Designers: Hugo Bugg and Maren Hallenga
The Exoskeleton
Designers: Paul Dracott
The Beehive Buildings
© Sharon Brown
26th July 2009