SPEAKER_01 0:00

BBC Gardeners World Live at the NEC in Birmingham, beautiful sunshine, blue sky on an odd cloud above us, but lots of smiling faces. Not least of all on the face of Mark Selby because you're a winner here at this show, Mark, with your uh garden the pioneering spirit, your border.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Um tell me about it. Uh well it started really with my love of camping. Um so thing was once upon a time, and um my love of nature uh really started with me going camping when I was a little lad, and I've got a son now, he's just started to go camping with me. So that that love sort of working with nature and being amongst it is kind of really important. So a lot of planting, mixing sort of wild planting with perennial planting, um, and then also the structures in the garden are sort of sort of reminiscent of using pioneering techniques from you know when when one may have been in the scouts when I was a young lad to use you know uh rope and wood to kind of lash these temporary structures together. So it's really working with materials in quite a sustainable way as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yeah, okay. So um just talk me through what you've planted here. It is beautiful and it's got a uh a natural look to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, it has. So we've used a lot of perennial, herbaceous perennials, uh salvias, geraniums and things like that, but then interspersed with that, we've got some annuals like all air, grande flora, um and uh even buttercup, meadow buttercup in there as well, just little pops of yellow, which you know, mixing in with those plants that will come back every year with also plants that perhaps you might see even you know just on a walk out in the in the woods, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Uh you start with the blank piece of paper when you're putting this together. Um, how did that go?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Well, actually, I I've I taught design for for 15 years, so I I um uh provide skate teaching. So I kind of I know a little bit about putting pen on paper. Um so the design in a way was easier. What I found most difficult was realising the design, that's you know, because there's lots of things you have to change, you know, and I think that that to me was the most um difficult element of doing the whole garden, really, or the border. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

You've mentioned the salvias, they seem to be very popular this year, particularly the sort of the purple mauve uh coloured ones. Uh also I've seen you've you've got a lot of quite tall see-through grasses here, which which obviously hark back to the edges of the fields from when you were camping.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

That's it, exactly. Yeah, we've got the coming across this, the the Chancia, these, and I love the movement of them, you know, as well. I mean, swaying in the breeze, beautifully. It's beautiful, yeah. The quaking grass there as well, you know. And I think that that always reminds takes me back, you know, sitting in a chair and and and you know, even at home in the garden, just watching that that grass move. I think makes something really relaxing and calming, takes you to another space.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

And I see you've got the the compulsory enameled tin uh teacups there.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

They're actually uh versions um uh made by uh Laura Sajarlett, she's a ceramicist. Uh so they're actually ceramic versions or copies of my original camping mug, so a sort of homage, really, in a way. Um so yeah, they're they're good little takeaways, little memento at the end.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

That's amazing. For a for a piece of ceramic that's made to look like those old tin mugs. You wouldn't guess. That's clever work, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Yeah, yeah, they're they're really beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

What are you you hoping uh people are going to take away from the story that you've told here, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

I I think calm. Lots of people have sort of come along, they've said how how sort of relaxing it feels, really, you know, and and and gentle. And I think that, you know, especially in a space like the NEC, it's really hectic, it's really busy here, and I think people can hopefully take away that sense that they can they can have a space that's calm, gentle in in a relatively small, you know, small space, you can create that little haven that's a space away from everywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Apart from your win, which must be deeply gratifying, it must be lovely to see people talking about your garden and your design, photographing it and taking inspiration home with them.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, I mean that is amazing. I mean, people coming up and saying, you know, oh that's a lovely idea and I'll use that at home. I mean, what more can you ask for, really? That sharing of knowledge. And I think that's what makes you know this event really special is the fact that people here really want to share uh things with one another. You know, gardeners want to share ideas and take them home, and I think that's that's really you know, really heartwarming.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Now that you have been a winner at BBC Gardeners World Live, where do you go from here? I mean, how do you top this? And are you coming back next year? Well, I don't I don't know if I'm asked, I might do, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Um I don't know how you top how you top this at the moment. Um for me I just need to sort of take it in and uh I think we'll take take the garden down and then see what happens next. Um I'm sort of starting a garden design business myself, and I think um this is a really good way to launch it and go on to bigger things, hopefully.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

So, what happens to all these beautiful plants at the end of the show when you take the garden down?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Uh some of them will go back into new designs for uh for new customers. Um the tree, um I'm looking for the donate the tree, um possibly to someone sort of back home, um local school, and then the structure has already been sort of bags it by somebody for some for their own garden. So things are sort of going to different places, um but everything's gonna be reused and recycled. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Well, congratulations on your win. It's absolutely marvellous, and it does generate. I love the way those grasses are now blowing in the in the breeze even more. It reminds me of my camping days as well. So good job, well done. Thank you very much, thank you.