Sarah Eberle wins top prize at Chelsea Flower Show

Garden representing overlooked countryside on urban fringes makes Eberle one of only three women to win best in show as solo designer

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Featuring a giant, sleeping woman carved out of a fallen tree, Sarah Eberle’s hauntingly beautiful garden has won the top prize at the Chelsea flower show .

Eberle, now the Royal Horticultural Society’s most decorated gardener, is a rarity; she is one of only three women to have won best in show at Chelsea as solo designers in its 100-year history.

Her garden, designed for the Campaign to Protect Rural England, was described as “mesmerising” by the judging panel. The space, which is dominated by the giant statue of Mother Nature, features still pools and soft fronds of grass and wildflowers. It was designed to represent the often overlooked countryside at the edge of towns and cities, which CPRE describes as vital green spaces that connect people to nature.

Eberle, 71, said she was “thrilled to bits” with the award. “This garden’s mission is very personal to me. I am a country girl through and through so I embody the same message and beliefs that the Campaign to Protect Rural England and this garden holds.”

The judges commented on the moving atmosphere the dreamy planting in the garden created.

Chris Bailes, the chair of the judging panel, said: “Sarah’s garden combines elements of myth and remarkable theatre. The planting speaks to an exceptionally rare sense of atmosphere, created through a clear connection to the urban and the countryside. Unexpected beauty is found in the concrete drain repurposed from an agricultural accessory into a mesmerising water feature using common duckweed.”

There has been much commentary among female garden designers in recent days about the lack of representation at the flower show.

The writer Clare Coulson, who featured many female gardeners in her book Wonderlands, about British garden design, said: “Every year I am completely perplexed by the lack of female designers at Chelsea, at least on the more ‘showy’ main avenue gardens. It’s a conversation I have a lot with designers and gardeners.

“Last year Jo Thompson’s garden was the only main avenue garden designed by a woman. This year, of nine main avenue show gardens, there are two female designers. Even a garden designed to foreground specifically female cancers is designed by a man.”

Coulson was referring to the Silent No More garden, which was designed by Darren Hawkes and aims to “open up uninhibited conversations about gynaecological health”.

The garden designer Elizabeth Tyler said: “We all burst out in incredulity in the studio as we realised that the garden for a specifically women’s cancer charity was being designed by a man, amongst other incredulities. I have a list on my phone of all the best in show winners for the last 20 years … many more men called Tom than women?’

Sam Proctor, an award-winning female Chelsea designer, added: “I was lucky to be supported by my husband and had no direct caring responsibilities when I did Chelsea. But colleagues with kids were super reliant on family – not just for the show itself but the build and all the other times we have to go above and beyond as lead designer on a show garden. And if you’re not local to London it must be a lot worse, being away from home for two to three weeks solid.”

In her 50-year horticulture career, Eberle has often been commented upon as an anomaly in a male-dominated industry. She has said in the past: “The reason I think more women don’t do Chelsea is because they have a better life balance. It takes over your life if you’re not careful. But garden designing is not the only profession where there are more men than women at the top. Most chefs are women but the high-profile ones are men.”

The result brings Eberle’s RHS Chelsea gold medal count to 14 and Best In Category wins to four, the most of any designer the show.

Other winners at the show this year included:

Best small show garden, Joe and Laura Carey, for Addleshaw Goddard: Flourish in the City, a garden that celebrates the hidden gardens and pocket-sized oases of London.

Best all about plants garden, Ashleigh Aylett, for Woodland Trust: Forgotten Forests Garden.

Best balcony and container garden, Katerina Kantalis, A Little Garden of Shared Knowledge sponsored by Viking.