The first RHS Award Winning Gardens of the 2023 season were announced yesterday and not one but two Gloucestershire female garden designers secured wins.

The awards were announced at the much-anticipated start of RHS Malvern Spring Festival at Three Counties Showground in Malvern, which runs until Sunday 14th May.

Emily Crowley-Wroe from April House Gardens in Bourton-on-the-Water was awarded a Silver-Gilt for HomeAway, a beautiful space inspired by French family holidays in northwest Brittany.

The Cotswolds-based designer has come up with a shared space for wildlife and people to enjoy and hopes visitors will be able to take home ideas for different methods of planting for drier situations and climates.

The design draws upon the landscape beyond and includes a central seating area, planted stony areas that nod to rocky coastal headlands with their cliff-hanging plants, and dusty pathways flanked by tough plants found along dunes and coastal pathways.

Formal and domestic gardens found in Brittany and France are echoed in the formal layout of paths and hedges and the blending of coastal hues and exotic planting.

A second Gloucestershire-based designer, Laura Ashton-Phillips, from Coleford, achieved a Silver Award for her Greener Gloucestershire NHS Garden, sponsored by Gloucestershire Managed Services and Gloucestershire County Council and with Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, all set to provide a permanent home for Laura's second garden for the RHS Malvern Spring Festival.

Top of the award-winning designers for 2023 is Jamie Langlands from Oxford Garden Company, who has scooped not only a Gold Award, a Best Construction and the top accolade of Best Show Garden for The Wildlife Trusts: Wilder Spaces.

The show gardens are the star of the show, alongside the stupendous floral marquee, a pioneering plant friendly zone, the brand-new Fire & Feast Stage and Tips & Tricks Theatre, plus the very best celebrity speakers, workshops and demonstrations.

Tickets for RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2023 start from just £25 (with under 16s free of charge). 

For full programme details and to book tickets, see https://www.rhsmalvern.co.uk/