Dave Green Gardens were asked to create a display about water management in gardens at the first ever autumn RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2021. After being approached by Cranfield university Dave came up with a design that included curved raised beds to represent water flows, planting for different soil conditions and several water features including a gutter down pipe that gushed with water filling an overflowing water tank.
The display was based on a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project funded jointly by the RHS, Cranfield University and Innovate UK; which encouraged gardeners to commit to range of small changes to collect rainwater, create healthy soils, develop better roots and slow the flow of water. Visitors were invited to scan a QR code on the stand and make pledges to change their gardening practices online at https://mains2rains.uk. This online tool then estimated how much water could be saved by each gardener and generated a total volume pledged. By Friday 24 September the total was over nine million litres of water in an average year.
At the show we worked with partners Plantbox, Vegepod, and Green Blue Urban to showcase a self watering living wall system, a self watering vegetable planter and premeable paving featuring an underground reservoir system respectively.
With thanks to the following material suppliers:
The full digital leaflet for the project can be seen here: mains2rains digital leaflet