At the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show and, before that, the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Jo Smith designed a garden devoted to recycled materials, under the auspices of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), a government-led body set up to encourage us to use more recycled products. A picnic bench (£259.90, Marmax Products) was made from old plastic bottles; wood-chip mulch was shredded from palettes (from £5.88 per 80-litre bag, Tracey Timber) and decking was made from Novadeck, a composite of pulp wood and recycled plastic (from about £50 per square metre, Recology).

The garden wall was formed by gabions (from £24, Merton Hall Pond), metal wire containers common at this year’s shows. Their beauty is in their versatility: fill them with any materials you like — the Wrap garden used big chunks of blue glass, scraped from the bottom of glass kilns. These could also be used in rockeries and water gardens (£1 per kilo, Minelco).

Decorative recycled-glass mulching has been around for a while and it was used in a pretty shade of aquamarine blue in the Dispersion et Mesure garden at the Chaumont-sur-Loire festival in France. The glass has been tumbled, so any sharp edges have been worn off.

Specialist Aggregates sells Enviro recycled glass, £32 for a 20kg bag. It also sells crushed shells, used on pathways in Eline Hanson and Paul Bradford’s Sustainable Garden Design at the Festival of the Garden, held at the Westonbirt National Arboretum in Gloucestershire.

Background

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Background

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Background

• Women ‘have the greener fingers’

• Chelsea Flower Show sustains a theme with some cosmic displays

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• Picture gallery: Chelsea Show Garden Winners 2007

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• The lowdown on Chelsea Flower Show

Background

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Chelsea Flower Show 2007 winners

Find out if your favourite garden won a gold at this year's show

Background

• Debutantes at the Chelsea Flower Show

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Diarmuid Gavin plays it safe at this year's Chelsea Flower Show

Horticultural revolutionary Diarmuid Gavin is nothing if not controversial. But for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show, he seems to be hedging his bets

Background

• Iggy, flower child of the Chelsea show

• Royal Horticlutural Show: calendar of events

• Water watch

Background

• A path runs through it

• Border lines

More comfortable would be the shredded-rubber mulch used on the borders in Espace Drar’s garden Ha-Happening (£28 for 10kg, Specialist Aggregates), especially if there are children around.

Marmax Products, 01207 283 442, www.marmaxproducts.co.uk; Tracey Timber, 01505 333 515, www.wmtracey.co.uk/tracey_timber.html; Recology, 0845 601 7181, www.recology.co.uk; Merton Hall Pond, 01953 881 763; Minelco, 01538 758 400, www.minelco.com; Specialist Aggregates, 01785 665 554, www.specialistaggregates.com; Wrap, 0800 100 240, www.wrap.org.uk.

The Festival of the Garden continues until September 12, www.festivalofthegarden.com; the International Garden Festival continues at Chaumont-sur-Loire until October 17, www.chaumont-jardin.com

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