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BURLINGTON HELPS PUT THE ZEN INTO CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW’S BEST GARDEN

Burlington’s Lakeland stone is renowned for playing a pivotal role in the award winning gardens of Chelsea Flower Show and 2008 is no exception. This year, the company’s blue/grey natural stone has not only helped make a splash in the Japanese-inspired garden created by leading designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd for The Daily Telegraph, it helped it scoop the highly-coveted Gold Medal award.

Five times a Gold Medallist and previous winner of the prestigious Best In Show award, Arabella Lennox-Boyd certainly lived up to her reputation for drama with this year’s design. Boasting the largest pond that Chelsea has ever seen, the design featured a breathtaking fusion of simplicity influenced by the restraint and harmony of a traditional Japanese garden, combined with Arabella’s Anglo-Italian twist of timeless chic.

At the heart of the garden was a bold expanse of still water up to 60cm (2ft deep) that was broken only by two Burlington rocks and twisting ribbons of Burlington paving and water lilies. Whilst yew hedging and roses fringed the pond, a Pterocarya fraxinifolia tree – chosen for its majestic spreading form – provided the final dramatic backdrop.

Inspired by the 16th Century Zen garden of raked gravel at the temple of Roanji in Kyoto, Japan, the design also had an echo of the traditional oriental symbols of Yin and Yang in the S shaped pathway and balancing placement of rocks.

Whilst this masterpiece was designed on the theme ‘less is more’, the search to obtain the exact products was just as painstaking as when including a plethora of products, as nothing was allowed to interrupt the contemplative nature of the space.

The colour, texture and finish of the stone was paramount, and the Designer herself handpicked Burlington’s blue/grey stone. Each rock had to be measured and its final height within the water calculated before it was even considered for final selection. Skilled quarrymen at Burlington’s Cumbria-based quarry spent hours manoeuvring the selected stones into positions so that Arabella could make her decision.

Burlington also supplied the sinuous slate path that snaked through the huge expanse of water. It was no easy task to cut each piece of slate accurately enough to have a slab butt-jointed across a spiralling length of over 20m. A template for each stone was created which then instructed the computer-guided cutting tool. Once cut, each slab was then set out on the ground and the outside hand-finished with a plucked edge.

Commenting on behalf of Burlington Slate, Joint Managing Director, Malcolm Hatch said: “We are extremely delighted that our natural stone has figured so prominently in the Gold Medal winning entry at Chelsea this year. Once again, Arabella’s creation is quite sensational and well worthy of the acclaim that it has received. Whilst being a superb choice of landscaping material, seeing the material in this light demonstrates perfectly how it blends beautifully with other natural elements.”

Email: julie@wentworthcomms.co.uk