I'm Libby Hudson from year 9 Caracals and I recently took part in designing a garden at a big RHS show, similar to the Chelsea flower show: the RHS Malvern spring festival. I designed, created and presented a garden for the Schools Garden Challenge. I decided to take part in this experience as I am interested in being a landscape designer when I'm older. The theme was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death so I decided to do the Merchant of Venice after studying it last year. I wanted it to be a relaxing garden that you can imagine being in so added subtle touches of the play.
I used three props to represent the three themes - two silver rings to represent the love story between Bassanio and Portia, a money tree to represent the character Shylock and a lead casket to show the choice that Bassanio has to make for Portia's hand in marriage. The garden was a formal herb garden and everything had a meaning. I created a formal garden to represent the Italian renaissance gardens and Elizabethan knot gardens and herbs because of their importance in Shakespeare's time. It was an amazing experience. It has been a working process since last September and I have met lots of people and have been able to practice lots of useful skills for later life.
The build up started mid April (this year) and even though it was stressful it was really fun and it was worth it in the end. The show was amazing and I met Alan Titchmarsh, saw Mary Berry and became friends with TV gardener Chris Collins! Gardening isn't necessarily thought of as a 'cool' thing to do but it was really fun and I felt as if I developed as a person. I also got the chance to promote Interhigh and had lots of people ask questions.
Libby Hudson
