KIDDERMINSTER garden designer Kate Mason ‘is both exhausted and elated’ after achieving her long-held dream of creating her first show garden at this year’s RHS Malvern Spring Festival.
And the green-fingered creator was awarded a silver-gilt medal.
Her tropical-style show garden, The Hierarchy of Plants, was inspired by psychologist Abraham Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ theory which categorises human desires into five levels. It won the People’s Choice Award out of the eight exhibits.
Kate said: “I’m still over the moon with the outcome, it’s just incredible, but I am so tired I can barely stand up and walk because it has been such a mad, mad month.
“There’s a huge sense of achievement, it’s the culmination of eight months’ worth of work and a dream that has been in my head since I went to college.
“I’ve always aspired to do something like it, and to have not just achieved it but loved every second of it, has just been the most incredible experience ever.”
Plant praise
A festival spokesperson described the garden as ‘unique and thought-provoking’ as it explored the relationship between plants and people. And they added it ‘featuring a visually striking layout with structured planting and playful symbolism’.
Kate’s mostly self-funded inspiration was clearly a big hit with visitors.
She said: “It means more to me than any gold medal, because to have people’s choice means that the people love it – the people who are going to buy my gardens and work with me, follow me and support me.
“Those are the most important people because they’re the ones who have made it happen for me.
“Without all their support, I wouldn’t have been there.”
It was a diagnosis of post-natal depression ten years ago that got Kate into gardening after it was suggested she do something that brought her joy.
She confessed that, when she first started, the only plants she knew the names of were petunia and a geranium.
A developing love of growing and plants inspired her to take an entry-level RHS qualification at Pershore College and from there she has not looked back.
Wins at BBC Gardeners World Live events came quickly and became the launch pad for a new garden design career.
She confessed the blues were not entirely banished but added gardening was a great grounding force that steadied her on the down days.
“It’s an escapism, it’s creating an alternate reality that you can stabilise your emotions in because when you’re in the garden and you’re focused on planting a plant or growing a seed, you’re really in the moment.
“You have to concentrate because if you don’t sow the seed right, it won’t grow, if you don’t cut the right bit of the plant, it won’t grow properly.
“As you go through that whole process of growing a garden, you’re also growing yourself at the same time.”
Her advice to anyone struggling with their mental health: “Take each day as it comes and on the good days just appreciate and literally go out and smell the roses.”
Her next ambition is to return to Malvern and strike gold.
