The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), initially founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. It aims to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.

The charity promotes horticulture through flower shows and competitions including the Chelsea Flower Show, Hampton Court Palace Flower Show, Tatton Park Flower Show and Young Designer of the Year, which is known for launching the careers of many young designers.

We were approached by Sam Ovens in 2014, a contender for the RHS Young Designer of the Year, to support his vision of viewing the garden from different levels and angles, to create a number of exciting and unique views that often go unnoticed.

In response to the theme of ‘Avant-Gardening’ Sam had the idea of using expanded Corten steel. The material has a higher strength and is more ductile to other everyday steel making it ideal for architectural and sculptural applications. Corten is also known as a ‘weathering steel’.

After Sam explained his innovative application of our expanded metal mesh we were delighted to support his entry into the competition and provided a complimentary batch of mesh panels for his feature.

Acting as a reminder of the value and precious nature of our outdoor spaces, every square inch of ground of the multi-storey garden was planted, giving a number of different perspectives from which to explore the garden. The garden was designed to make people stop, think, and see that there are other ways of doing things and remind us of the importance our gardens have in connecting us with plants and wildlife.

Sam went on to win gold and was named RHS Young Designer of the Year and donated the entire display to a hospice in Plymouth as a place for patients and relatives to relax.

He has since continued his award-winning career in landscape design.

For more inspiration on how our expanded metal mesh can be used explore our case studies and see how finishings such as galvanising and polyester powder coating can add extra protection to your architectural and structural mesh products.