With this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show over for another year, it’s worth recognising the less-publicised skill that went into creating some of the gardens.

A great example is the stone structure in the ‘God's Own County – A Garden for Yorkshire’.  Inspired by the medieval Great East Window at York Minster, the structure formed the centrepiece of Matthew Wilson’s colourful garden, which won a silver medal and the ‘People’s Choice’ award. 

As some garden designers and others in the industry might have realised, the structure wasn’t in fact crafted from quarried stone, even though it perfectly resembled it, but from cast stone – a process that allows intricate shapes to be created using a mould filled with a precise matrix of loose materials, before being cured and allowed to set.

The cast stone was manufactured by Procter Cast Stone. Their sales manager, Simon Tibble, explains how the job came about.

“Earlier in the year we were approached by Welcome to Yorkshire to see if we could help with the design and manufacture of the stone structure, plus other features, in their Chelsea garden. We’re based in Garforth, West Yorkshire, so I suppose our location along with renowned expertise in cast stone made us the perfect partner. We were delighted to help, and using only rough sketches as a starting point, we went on to design and manufacture the four turrets, 55 square metres of ashlar walling, the ‘laying down’ window, planters and benches.

“Of course cast stone has long been used by garden designers for stone features, but often just as standard products which, of course, limit creativity. Large custom-made structures formed from quarried stone are hugely expensive, but cast stone allows a much more cost-effective alternative. We’re seeing an increase in interest from garden designers in using cast stone for custom-made garden structures.”

Information: click here www.caststoneuk.co.uk/