A Seed of Hope | Beautiful Wild Garden and Landscape Design

View through a gilt frame into a secret sanctuary garden for insects, wildflowers and people, at the International Garden Festival Chaumont-sur-Loire 2022

"A Seed of Hope" garden for insects and wildflowers at Chaumont-sur-Loire. Echinacea Heleniums and Lythrum salicaria around a watering can which gently and steadily flows into a small hidden wildlife pond

Red clover, Musk Mallow and other wildflowers are carefully tended in this show garden at the International Garden Festival, Chaumont-sur-Loire. The garden celebrates the long evolution of insects and wildflowers and looks at the need to care for them in our gardens. Stepover apple trees create a decorative boundary through the garden.

Forget-me-nots and Knapweed are set in front of posts representing a path tiptoeing through this insect and wildflower garden, A "Seed of Hope" at Chaumont-sur-Loire 2022

"A SEED OF HOPE": INTERNATIONAL GARDEN FESTIVAL AT THE CHATEAU OF CHAUMONT-SUR-LOIRE, FRANCE, 2022

Area: 230 sq. m.

The central theme of this show garden is that the actions we take at home have an impact on the world around us - and when we care for insects we set off a positive chain of environmental influence which extends beyond own boundaries. After plants, invertebrates are the most important life form on the planet: "A Seed of Hope" was the first large international show garden to place insects centre stage, alongside the wild flowers which have evolved in harmony with them over 130 million years.

All spaces designed by Beautiful Wild have nature at their heart: but it is vital that clients love their new look. By fortunate coincidence, landscapes which support life above and below the soil through ecologically sound design and thoughtful insect friendly planting create deep serenity for their human inhabitants too. This sense of peace and repose and the feeling that time had slowed for a moment was what most visitors to "A Seed of Hope" commented on as they paused, listened to the birdsong, and stood still for a while.

The Chateau of Chaumont-sur-Loire hosts the prestigious International Garden Festival each year alongside installations by world renowned sculptors and artists. The theme for their 30th anniversary Festival was "The Ideal Garden", and this was one of 24 designs chosen in a competition for designers across the globe. The concept and design by Gini Denison-Pender of Beautiful Wild was brought to life by construction design team Carl Chaney and James Gleghorn of Greenscape Gardens, artist Louise Thompson, and the expert planting team of Margaret Harvey, Rebecca Shaw and Henrietta Dutton Williamson. Professor Dave Goulson, invertebrate expert, best selling author and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, was our consultant.

Water spills gently from a copper watering can into a wildlife pond hidden amongst Alliums and Ragged Robin in this wildlife garden at the International Garden Festival, Chaumont-sur-Loire 2022, on the opening day 3 weeks after planting in the snow

Hover over this image of the garden in late June, 10 weeks after planting, for snapshots of the build in progress

Design by Beautiful Wild for "A Seed of Hope" garden for invertebrates and wildflowers at the International Garden Festival

The "Seed of Hope" plot at Chaumont before work began

"A Seed of Hope" garden at Chaumont-sur-Loire after the hard landscaping but before internal hedges and plants arrived

January: bare earth and the outer boundary of hornbeam hedging.

The plan for "A Seed of Hope".

March: hard landscaping wrapped up by Greenscape Gardens

The planting team of Louise Thompson, Margaret Harvey, Gini Denison-Pender, Rebecca Shaw and Henrietta Dutton Williamson

April: the planting team - just after pinning fleece to protect the new plants, as snow and frost arrived at Chaumont.

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