CED Stone products lead visitors around Hampton Court gardens
As the sun beats down on the crowds at RHS Hampton Court this week, everyone at CED Stone can be proud that the group’s stone and landscaping products feature in 14 of the show gardens.
Biggest by far is a garden marking 30 years of the BBC’s Countryfile programme. Designed by Ann-Marie Powell, the garden celebrates the British landscape and the communities who live and work in rural areas. Three times the size of one of the large show gardens on Main Avenue at RHS Chelsea, everything needed to be on a grand scale, including stone pieces.
CED Stone was happy to sponsor the Countryfile garden with donated stone products. Managing Director Giles Heap worked with Ann-Marie to choose boulders and stone pieces suitable for each area of the garden – depicting landscapes from the Scottish Highlands, Yorkshire Dales, Welsh Woodlands, South of England and the British coastlines.
At the Viking Cruises Nordic Lifestyle garden, designed by Stephen Hall from Contour Garden Design to promote Scandinavia, Mixed Glacial Boulders donated by CED Stone line the area leading from the sauna hut to the plunge pool. Also donated to help conjure up a feeling of a Nordic rocky landscape were weathered Gabbro boulders, smooth Porphyry Plattens used as stepping stones, and Highland cobbles.
A talking point at the show is bound to be the RHS biodome Evolve: Through The Roots of Time. This large educational feature garden takes visitors through different time periods, showing the evolution of plants and how the landscape might have looked at various points in the earth’s history. The build team worked closely with CED Stone experts to choose appropriate materials from accurate geological time lines.
Altogether, CED Stone donated nine different stone materials for the biodome walk-through feature. Paths in the garden also use the CEDApath gravel stabilisation system, featuring hexagonal cells to keep gravel in place.
One of the CED products getting a lot of positive comments at the show is Porphyry Setts, as seen in Alexandra Noble’s Health and Wellbeing garden.
Alexandra had originally thought of using clay pavers for the narrow curved paths leading round different features of the garden. But when she visited CED’s London East - West Thurrock depot with landscaper Ed Burnham, she was advised by MD Giles Heap that the tight radius of the path’s circles couldn’t be created with the longer rectangular-shaped Clay Pavers. After discussing various ways of enabling the flowing paths to have a quality finish on the internal curves, while keeping build work to budget and time constrictions, Alexandra settled on the Porphyry Setts. She loved the rustic, purple tones of these setts, which are often laid in fan patterns in Italian and Spanish piazzas.
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