By Mike Thatcher
Hurstpierpoint’s Juliet Sargeant has designed the new Blue Peter Garden, which will be unveiled at the Chelsea Flower Show in May. It will then be transferred up to Bridgewater in Salford, once the flowers are quarantined and will be replanted in the autumn.
“It’s very exciting,” said Juliet, whose offices are in the High Street. “Every one of my age watched Blue Peter and grew up with John Noakes and Shep, and of course, Percy Thrower’s garden. This is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
The regular Hurst Life columnist has been working on it for a year and Blue Peter have been filming the making of the garden, so expect to see her on your screens in the upcoming months. The first Blue Peter Garden, designed by Percy Thrower in 1974, with a sunken pond and statue of Petra, was relocated from Television Centre to Media City in 2012. Blue Peter presenter Mwaksy will be joined by Henry the dog to officially open the garden on Press Day, Monday 23rd May. “I was contacted and allowed to choose any theme I wanted. I didn’t want to do a typical children’s garden with swings and primary colours. I wanted to make it a semi-serious garden as I sense a seriousness about young people these days, who perhaps feel the weight of the mess we’ve made of the world. I wanted to do something environmental; but they know about carbon and climate change, but they don’t know about soil.” Her challenge was to bring to life the subject of soil and to open the eyes of children and adults to soil’s central role in supporting life and its potential to lock-in carbon. Juliet has personal experience from Tanzania in East Africa of the devastating effects of soil degradation and so grasped this opportunity to bring the message of the importance of soil to children’s attention.
“I thought the way to approach it was through creativity and art. I see the garden as sitting between the junction of art and science, so I’m hoping that by making it fun, colourful and creative, it will peak the childrens’ interest to ask questions about soil.” She wanted to make sure it wasn’t a teaching garden and has avoided having information boards everywhere, so that no one feels they have to absorb lots of information or feel preached at.
Juliet trained initially as a medical doctor and has long advocated the importance of gardens for health and in her private practice; she uses gardens to help connect people to the landscape and nature. In 2017 Juliet was made a Fellow of the SGD for her contribution to garden design & horticulture and in 2019 she was made Fellow of The Landscape Institute. She was also one of the Evening Standard’s Progress 100 influential people. In 2018 she was named as one of the BBC 100 Women.
