Gold for Leeds as Chelsea gets a taste of Yorkshire rhubarb

The entry, produced by the city council's parks and countryside staff with engineering design from sponsors HESCO Bastion, wowed judges and visitors alike to earn the highest award at the Royal Horticultural Society event in London.

The gold medal is a first for Leeds at Chelsea after earning two successive silvers in the last two years and silvers and bronzes with five previous gardens dating back to their first appearance at Chelsea in 1997.

Coun Andrew Carter, leader of Leeds City Council said: "This is a day we have all dreamed of since Leeds first started coming to Chelsea – competing with the best in the world and winning a gold medal."

The show as a whole has a distinctly Yorkshire feel to it.

Whether it is in the smaller courtyard gardens or the bigger show entries there is an impressive northern presence among the tropical blooms, pagodas and dovecotes.

The stunning 12ft-high lock gates which form the centrepiece of Leeds City Council's Hesco Garden 2010 certainly had the wow factor, drawing the crowds on members' day.

"It's bizarre. I feel I am standing by the Leeds and Liverpool canal. It looks like it has been here forever," said actress Lesley Joseph. "I think it is wonderful the way they build gardens like this, Leeds should be very proud."

Piers Morgan agreed. "I think it is fantastic. My dad read about the lock gates being brought down for the show and said we have to go and see them."

"He's a really keen gardener and is very impressed at the whole garden."

The garden's theme is the green link connecting the city centre to surrounding countryside with the lock gates allowing water to flow into a mock canal surrounded by three distinctive habitats, woodland, wetland and floral.

"It looks absolutely great and a real tribute to the parks department," said Coun John Procter, Leeds City Council Executive Member for Leisure.

"It is always good to hear the public reaction during the week as I and other elected members hand out brochures, particularly when the visitors are from Leeds and Yorkshire and say how proud they are at what we have done."

On a smaller scale but hoping to make just as big an impact is the Welcome to Yorkshire's Rhubarb Crumble and Custard Garden in the Courtyard section.

The garden is a quirky take on the classic dish inspired by Yorkshire's very own Rhubarb Triangle, this year celebrating Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb receiving protected name status.

A mouth watering bowl of Stockbridge Arrow rhubarb standing in yellow sedum sits centre stage with a wooden spoon oak chair made by furniture designer Peter Cummings at his studio in Reeth. But there is a serious purpose to the garden launching Welcome to Yorkshire's Gardens Campaign.

"We have some of the finest gardens in England, in all shapes and sizes and this is an excellent way of promoting them," said Peter Dodd, international sales director.

Only yards away, Yorkshire gardener Graham Bodle is making his Chelsea debut for Walkers Nurseries of Blaxton, Doncaster, also in the Courtyard gardens.

After showing for three years at Tatton Park he was thrilled to be invited to exhibit at the Royal Hospital grounds, choosing a Pine and Conifer Enthusiasts Garden in tribute to Lawrence and Vera Walker, the founders of the nursery.

"I wanted to show they could be used in a different kind of way, softening the conifers with grasses and making people think about them differently," he said.

Graham completed his Garden Art and Design degree at Leeds Metropolitan University in 2001 and as well as working at the nursery runs his own

landscape company Spacemaker.

With the environment in mind, the garden has been built using reclaimed materials and makes use of rainwater and a compost heap, while an insect house and nesting box attracts wildlife.

Young skills is also the theme of urban garden Growing World Class Talent, making good use of students past and present from Askham Bryan College including Keith Chapman, 24, from Richmond and Grant Finch, 19 from Scarborough.

While in the Great Pavilion the West Yorkshire Group's display for the Hardy Plant Society on the theme True Yorkshire Grit highlighted the hard work involved in showing at Chelsea.

"We didn't go to bed at all last night we were working so late," said exhibit co-ordinator Pat Inman. "We got in about 5.20am, showered and came straight back."

Other highlights yesterday included models wearing dresses made from flowers and the most expensive garden in British horticultural history as 20m worth of diamonds went on show in the bmi British Midland Ace of Diamonds garden.

There are over 600 exhibitors from all over the world and 157,000 visitors are expected.CHEF Jamie Oliver hopes Yorkshire-born garden designer Mark Gregory will have a real taste of success with his latest Chelsea entry for the Children's Society.

He gave his seal of approval to the garden by cooking up pizza in its wood-fired stove, a feature which would delight the thousands of young people surveyed by the society to see what makes them happy.

"It's a fantastic garden. Having an outdoor space for children to be active, have fun, learn about their environment and offer fresh seasonal produce for the table is wonderful," he said.

Mr Gregory, born at West Cowick, near Selby, but now running his own company in Surrey, has been helping to build medal- winning gardens at the show for more than 20 years and is hoping for his third consecutive gold for the Children's Society design.

"The build went really well," he said. "There are always little problems like the main acer tree not coming into leaf as quick as we hoped."

The Children's Society survey showed young people put high on their list of happiness factors a family that gets along and he used that as his inspiration for a tranquil retreat with somewhere to chill out under the trees, sit around the plunge pool and enjoy family pizzas.Cool and chic – two words being applied to Yorkshire designer Jamie Dunstan's second entry in the Urban Garden category at the Chelsea Flower Show.

His relaxing garden using plants and stonework from the family-run Plants of Special Interest Nursery at Braithwell near Rotherham is aptly entitled The Go Modern Garden.

The lower part features plants that like a moist environment with boundaries of woven oak fencing softened by silver birch in planters specially made at Bawtry, leading to Mediterranean-style planting where his sponsors provide the modern furniture.

"We have had some issues over the plants, because of the weather everything was late, and just when we brought everything out we had take them back indoors again to protect them from the recent frost."

Last year he picked up a Silver Flora award and is hoping to do better this year.

His corner site proved challenging and stressful for more than one reason.

"It is right on the main route in the showground and everybody goes past which means it is both noisy and dusty, and you don't have a lot of room to work with," he said.

Not many grandmothers can boast of having an exhibit at Chelsea to honour their birthday but then not many reach the grand age of 100.

Patricia Gibbons was determined to mark her grandmother's centenary tomorrow with something different and a display of 100 Japanese maples will certainly put Lilian May Gibbons in the headlines.

Her grandmother was still helping to pot up seedlings at Hippopottering Nursery, Haxey, Doncaster, into her 90s but is having a more relaxing time now.

Patricia might have had mixed feelings about the display since her father John, who founded the nursery with her mother Margaret, died in April. "He knew all about the display and he would have wanted me to carry on," she said. "Now I am glad I did."

Last week's frosts caused her late problems. "The trees were lined up ready to load and I had to swap 15 of the tallest which caught the frost."

The display also involved two people spending 80 hours taking every leaf off the moss surrounding the trees. "It's a very fiddly job but the judges like things to be immaculate," she added.