Award winning designer Paul Stone to create Rachel’s Organic Garden for Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

With a clutch of RHS Chelsea Flower Show gold medals under his belt and three decades in the business, Landscape Designer Paul Stone is not easily fazed by the thought of designing a garden from scratch.

However, he does admit that the challenge of creating a show garden for leading premium organic dairy brand, Rachel’s Organic, at this year’s Hampton Court Flower Show has certainly got the heart thumping!

Celebrating an impressive 25 years of pioneering great taste with style this year, Rachel’s plan to mark their silver anniversary with a week long garden party at the prestigious flower show. Paul’s job is to create the party’s centrepiece – the garden!

For the London-born designer who moved to Falmouth, Cornwall, ten years ago, it is an exciting prospect.

“I have been commissioned to design two Gardens as part of a relaxing social space where consumers can experience Rachel’s Organic, the headline Show Sponsor!” says Paul, 53.

“My designs usually have a nostalgic and romantic feel. We are going to create two small gardens that really try to connect to Rachel’s passion for great tasting products, so they will focus on working in harmony with nature, quality and style.”

The first Garden is called “Rachel’s Passion for Taste”. All the garden features are natural, from the wildflowers beneath the fruit trees to the thatched gazebo garden store, it will display a glorious abundance of the organic produce that go into Rachel’s products.

The second Garden celebrates Rachel’s 25th Anniversary with a brand themed, chic monochromatic planting scheme incorporating a small Glasshouse and stylised garden features to match. Its called “Rachel’s Stylish by Nature Garden” and with its aromatic musk roses, orange blossom, vanilla and chocolate fragrances you should smell it before you see it – too good to eat though!

Visitors can enjoy both Gardens from the comfort of a pleasant seating area around the Rachel’s Produce Stand where they can find out first hand what the products all about!

Paul, married with two sons, runs a Garden Design service mainly for private clients, but specialises in Show Gardens, where his clients have included The Daily Mail, Help the Aged, Motability and Banrock Station Wine. His two gardens for Trago Mills at the West Country Flower Show at Westpoint won gold medals and a Best in Show Award. He also looks after Landscaping at the Eden Project Cornwall, where he oversaw the manufacture of the 85000 tonnes of man made topsoil. There was so much work to be done after that he just stayed on!

He won gold at Chelsea in 2004 with the “White Garden”, the only top medal winner in the small garden category, and followed up the following year with another for “Steptoe’s Front Garden”. Previously in 2001 he caused a big splash at Chelsea by featuring a Mini Cooper in the middle of a 1960s garden, voted most popular in the show. He was also part of the team which won golds in 1988 and 1989 at Chelsea.

Perhaps Paul’s best-known work was the 1997 RHS Hampton Court Flower Show gold and “best in show” garden entitled “The Railway Children” for the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust which memorably featured an ornate bridge and a small-scale steam train.