GARDENERS from across Oxfordshire were recognised for their innovative horticultural designs at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.

The county claimed a variety of prizes at the prestigious five-day festival, which ended on Saturday.

Stephen Hendry, owner of Newington Nurseries, near Stadhampton, wowed judges at the London exhibition with his £150,000 Undersea Reef Garden.

His creation, made in partnership with the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism, attempted to replicate the island’s famous coral gardens.

The self-taught garden designer won the prestigious President’s Most Creative Award and a coveted gold award in the floral category.

The 53-year-old said: “The judges said I took design into a new dimension for Chelsea. I feel on top of the world. I feel like I have had so much Champagne but I haven’t had a drink yet. I always thought the President’s Award was out of my reach.”

All the garden’s plants and materials were sourced in the UK, in keeping with the Caribbean country’s ethos for conservation and preserving the environment.

The backdrop to the 100 square metre garden was a life-sized mural of part of the island’s Bloody Bay Wall, a dive site which lies just off Little Cayman.

Artificial coral, lighting and 100 tonnes of rock were also used in the eye-catching design.

Former interior designer Mr Hendry opened his Oxfordshire nursery in 1995.

A Chelsea Flower Show veteran, he has won two gold and two silver medals since he first entered the competition in 1999, when he created a tropical rainforest garden featuring a crashed aeroplane.

Fellow flower show entrant, Angus Thompson, of Angus Thompson Design, based in Kingston Road, North Oxford, won a gold medal in the urban garden category for his garden ‘Nature’s Ascending’.

The 39-year-old father-of-three, who worked with friend Jane Brockbank on the design, said: “The garden shows you can have a wildlife garden and high quality urban design.”

The UK Climate Impacts Programme, based at Oxford University, entered its How Does Your Garden Grow exhibit, winning a silver award.

Project leader Richard Lamb said: “We created a herb garden with plants that people will be familiar with. We were trying to show how the changing climate affects the growing season.”

A team of three homeless gardeners from the Steppin’ Stone Project, based at Elder Stubbs allotments near Cricket Road, East Oxford, also attended the show.

Gardening project manager Nigel Northcott said the garden the group worked on had won a silver medal in the show gardens category.

He said: “Everybody who is anyone in the world of horticulture takes part, and for homeless people to be invited along is tremendous.”

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