A little piece of real-life Yorkshire will be on show at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as a windswept hawthorn tree makes the long journey from Brimham Rocks in North Yorkshire to the Chelsea Showground.
The hawthorn tree – removed from the Brimham Rocks site as part of the National Trust’s conservation programme – is part of Welcome to Yorkshire’s garden at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, a celebration of Yorkshire’s varied rural and urban landscapes, ahead of the arrival of the Tour de France in the county in July.
The garden, designed by Alistair W Baldwin Associates from Bedale in North Yorkshire, will feature an impressive drystone wall incorporating reclaimed bicycle wheels as the backdrop to a two-sided, rural and urban design.
Alistair Baldwin, director of AWB Associates, said: “The Grand Départ will be a huge celebration for Yorkshire, so we’re looking to represent that in our garden. So many people know the rugged countryside of Yorkshire, particularly the moors, the uplands and the rocks, so part of the garden is going to be quite rugged and wild in its feel and by contrast the rest of the garden is going to interject into that rural landscape and be much more honed and engineered and polished. The magnificent hawthorn tree is a special piece of Yorkshire itself, and a wall of drystone and bicycle wheels forms the perfect backdrop to a garden that celebrates the beauty of Yorkshire and the success of cycling in the county this year.”
Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: Our Tour de Yorkshire garden brings together all that is wonderful in our beautiful county, with a unique twist to celebrate the arrival of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Yorkshire. Our famous scenery will take centre stage when the world’s greatest cycle race arrives in the summer, and the Tour de Yorkshire garden sets the scene perfectly for what will be the greatest event ever to have come to Yorkshire.”
Joanna Royle, head of marketing and supporter development at the National Trust, said: We’re really excited that a small part of the Yorkshire countryside is being transported to the Chelsea Flower Show. The tree comes from Brimham Rocks, a weird and wonderful collection of rock formations, surrounded by woodlands and heather moorland. We hope to see the variety of what Yorkshire has to offer in the Welcome to Yorkshire garden.
The Tour de Yorkshire garden will also feature impressive limestone boulder steps alongside traditional Yorkshire drystone walls, all created by Leeds-based Aire Valley Landscaping, with all stone provided by A. D. Calvert Stone Supplies from Leyburn, North Yorkshire.
The reclaimed bicycle wheels incorporated into the back wall have been provided by the Bike Rescue Project in York, and a large elliptical water feature will be made from DuPont Corian Solid Surface.
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2014 runs from 19th to 24th May.
The Grand Départ of the Tour de France takes place in Yorkshire on the weekend of the 5th and the 6th July. The first stage races from Leeds to Harrogate via the Yorkshire Dales and the second stage races from York to Sheffield via Pennine Yorkshire. More details about the Grand Départ are available online at www.letouryorkshire.com
