![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/18\/2023\/04\/Web-Use-The-Centrepoint-Garden-designed-by-Cleve-West-ffade30.jpg?quality=90&crop=96px%2C0px%2C787px%2C524px&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\nWe talked to Cleve about his garden:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been seven years since Cleve West<\/a> last created a show garden at Chelsea, and he had no intention of doing another one until he was approached by the team from the Centrepoint charity, which aims to end youth homelessness by 2037.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Designer<\/strong> Cleve West.<\/p>\n Sponsors<\/strong> Project Giving Back\u00a0for Centrepoint.<\/p>\n Contractor<\/strong> Crocus.<\/p>\n Plants<\/strong> Hortus Loci.<\/p>\n Theme<\/strong> The garden is a metaphor for youth homelessness in the UK.<\/p>\n After the show<\/strong> Elements of the Centrepoint Garden will be repurposed at one of Centrepoint\u2019s Independent Living developments.<\/p>\n Contact<\/strong> clevewest.com<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> The idea for the garden came to him \u201cliterally within a few minutes,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a visceral, powerful metaphor for homelessness: the ruins of a house that has been knocked down, and then nature has taken over slowly.\u201d He based the actual dimensions of the building on his stepdaughter\u2019s house, but \u201cnone of it will be recognisable, except for a basement kitchen, with a fireplace that\u2019s symbolic of home life, love, warmth and safety.\u201d<\/p>\n The design will also feature piles of rubble, and a fallen tree \u2013 a metaphor for being uprooted. The fallen tree is a large birch<\/a>, echoed throughout the garden with repeated birch seedlings, saplings and trees, which populate the space in the way they actually would in this situation, at different stages of life. There will also be trees and shrubs such as hazel<\/a>, elder and buddleja<\/a> that tend to seed themselves around.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re also using what people will call \u2018weeds<\/a>\u2019 in the garden,\u201d Cleve says, alongside a mix of ornamentals; remnants of the old Victorian townhouse garden that would have survived years of neglect, such as Cordyline australis<\/em> and Yucca elephantipes<\/em>. The boundary of the space will be formed of plywood hoarding, which Cleve has painted with topiary shapes in the Pointillist style. The circa 120,000 dots represent the number of homeless young people in the UK. \u201cIt\u2019s quite a sobering thought and a strong visual representation of that figure,\u201d says Cleve.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 1 Ruins<\/strong> The design is centred around fragments of a demolished Victorian townhouse, to represent homelessness. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2022 <\/span>Find out more about Cleve\u2019s garden in our Talking Gardens<\/i> Chelsea podcast<\/a>, launching on 16 May.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Sign up to our Chelsea Flower Show Daily Digest newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n Chelsea Flower Show 2023: tickets, information, dates and what\u2019s on<\/a>What to look out for<\/h4>\n
More on the 2023 RHS Chelsea Flower Show:<\/h4>\n