Wakefield designer Jamie Butterworth gets garden gold at Chelsea

The 27-year-old is the youngest designer at the show this year.

He was given the coveted Gold medal for ‘The Place2Be Securing Tomorrow Garden’.

It was created for the Place2Be charity, which supports children’s mental health.

After the show it will be relocated to the Viking Primary School in Northolt, West London, with the purpose of promoting the importance of children’s mental health and to offer a safe space where children can take time and talk.

Jamie has always wanted to do a garden at Chelsea but it had to be for the right reason, for a garden with a meaning.

The pandemic highlighted to him the negative impact Covid has had on children, with first-hand experience through his parents who are frontline workers.

He said: “Talking and sharing can seem daunting, and this became the catalyst for my RHS Chelsea Flower Show Garden: to create a safe, beautiful space that hopefully helps to facilitate and stimulate conversation,” he said.

“It’s a garden that brings together the two things that have helped me the most throughout my life: plants and people.”

Jamie now lives in Berkshire but his parents still live in Durkar and he is a frequent visitor to his home city.

He studied at Askham Bryan College in York and then RHS Garden Wisley.

In 2016 he became one of eight Royal Horticultural Society’s ambassadors joining Alan Titchmarsh, Mary Berry and Nick Knowles.

Jamie spent four years working for a company growing plants for the Chelsea Flower Show, and in 2018 he set up his own business.

Then, in 2020, he launched Form Plants, which supplies the landscaping industry with trees and plants.