The display, depicting an underwater coral reef, won the gold medal in the show’s floral category, along with its President's Most Creative Award.
Undersea Reef Garden was created for the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism by Grand Cayman’s Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, in association with Newington Nurseries, in Oxfordshire.
The display’s plants and other materials were UK-sourced, because taking items from the Cayman Islands would not have been in line with the islands’ “stringent marine-conservation policies”.
The display’s ‘corals’, for instance, employ a combination of artificial coral structures and succulent plants that can be “used creatively to mimic the colourful coral that holds such allure for divers”.
Backdrop to the display is a mural of Bloody Bay Wall, a deep drop-off and popular dive site near Little Cayman.
Undersea Reef Garden enjoyed “not one but two visits during the Royal walk-about,” said the Tourism Department, “with HRH Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall making a beeline for the garden, as well as the Earl and Countess of Wessex”.
The display’s success follows the award at last year’s Chelsea Flower Show of silver to the Cayman’s debut display in the Heritage Garden category. This was created by the same constructor as this year’s winning effort.
The Chelsea Flower Show, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society, opened on 19 May and ends on 23 May.
Show website - http://www.rhs.org.uk/whatson/shows/chelsea2009
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