The Telegraph Garden - Designer: Cleve West

The Telegraph garden for RHS Chelsea 2011 is being designed by renowned garden designer Cleve West. This will be Cleve's fourth show garden at the Chelsea Flower Show, where he has previously won two RHS Gold medals (2006 and 2008) and the coveted RHS/BBC People's Choice Award for his 2008 design.

The design for The Telegraph is loosely inspired by a visit Cleve made to the Roman ruins at Ptolemais, Libya, several years ago.

Key features include a novel sunken space – using reclaimed Cotswold stone for paving and walls – beautiful trees and stunning sculpture.

The sunken space will accentuate the height of the surrounding planting and, in turn, the intimacy of the garden. Structural yew and box offer familiar structure and a foil for looser plant associations, while self-seeders and colonisers suggest that parts of the garden will shift and change in time, albeit within a rigid framework.

The traditional elements are balanced by the contemporary sculpture of French artists Serge Bottagisio and Agnes Decoux. Cleve travelled to the South of France to visit the sculptors who create statues from earth and concrete which they mold into basic shapes. Cleve hopes to use ‘Colonnes’ designed by Agnes and Serge to add scale and texture to the garden.

The garden explores how juxtaposing traditional and contemporary elements can bring a sense of permanence to a garden. Cleve urges gardeners not to be frightened of combining new materials with more traditional ones – a practice he has more than amply demonstrated in several of his award winning gardens with stunning success.

Cleve is delighted to have been chosen by The Telegraph to design this year's garden. For the last two consecutive years (2009 and 2010) The Telegraph's garden has been awarded the top prize of Best Show Garden by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) judges so Cleve is only too aware of the responsibility resting on his shoulders.

"I feel extremely privileged to have been chosen by The Telegraph for this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show and I'm looking forward to creating a beautiful garden for them," explains Cleve. "I'm particularly excited about using contemporary sculpture in what some might see as a traditional setting. Used well, divergent elements can bring an interesting energy to any garden."

He prefers to spend a lot of time on site during the garden build as he feels that this stops one becoming complacent – he also enjoys getting his hands dirty!

Joanna Fortnam, Gardening Editor, The Daily Telegraph, said: "Cleve is renowned for his originality as a designer – he always comes up with an individual take on a timeless theme. I'm expecting his garden for The Telegraph to be full of surprises and very beautiful."

We wish Cleve every success with his garden and sincerely hope that it will be a winning combination for Cleve and The Telegraph.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from 24th to 28th May 2011 at The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, London. Information and tickets - www.rhs.org.uk

Picture Credit: Cleve West - © The Telegraph