Society of Garden Designers announces winners at the SGD Awards 2021

The Society of Garden Designers has announced the winners of the ninth annual SGD Awards at a live event in London celebrating standout projects from across the industry. 

The most prestigious award of the night - The Grand Award - was presented to Sara Jane Rothwell MSGD for a stunning sloped garden in London which the judges described as a 'sexy, avant-garde design which has been flawlessly executed’.  Kristina Clode won the coveted Judges’ Award for a school sensory garden and renowned garden designer, author and broadcaster David Stevens FSGD was presented with the SGD Lifetime Achievement Award marking a career that spans over 50 years. 

Richard Sneesby, head of the SGD Awards judging panel said: "With well over 100 entries this year, we judged some of the best gardens we have seen. We were especially encouraged to see many entries in the smaller garden categories which showcased exquisite detailing and beautiful planting as well as gardens which celebrate the importance of setting rigorous and challenging environmental goals and the critical role that outdoor places have in providing social and community benefits. In this, of all years, we were really delighted to see so many gardens making a real difference to people’s health and well-being”

Boasting an impressive hat-trick of awards, the Grand Award-winning garden designed by Sara Jane Rothwell was also named best Medium Residential Garden as well as winning the award for best Planting Design. Built on a steeply sloping plot, the garden transformed an overgrown, unusable space into a family garden incorporating a lawn, an outdoor gym and layers of cascading planting.  The judges described it as 'beautiful, accomplished and very exciting.'

Awards newcomer Kristina Clode was awarded both the prestigious Judges’ Award and the Design for the Environment Award for the Sedlescombe Primary School Sensory garden in East Sussex.  A true community effort built almost entirely by volunteers, with each school child planting a plant, the garden included a wide-range of wildlife friendly plants to increase biodiversity as well as drought-tolerant plants to reduce the need for watering.  The judges commended it for being 'sustainable in its widest senses, not only in terms of the use of materials and well-chosen planting, but in terms of its longevity'.  They described it as an exceptional learning environment to teach children about the environment and a great example of what garden design is all about.

The People’s Choice Award – the only award to be determined by public vote – went to Alice Ferguson MSGD and Jamie Innes of Artisan Landscapes for a garden inspired by terrariums and Japanese temple gardens.  The garden, which also won the Garden Jewel Award, was described by the judges as 'an exquisite subterranean garden providing a stunning focal point to look out onto, walk through and spend time in.'  In the second hat-trick of the evening, Alice and Jamie also won the Big Ideas, Small Budget Award for a tiny 33 metre square garden in Bristol.  

On a much larger scale, Society Fellow Andrew Wilson FSGD and Gavin McWilliam MSGD won the Large Residential Garden Award for Longwood - a garden designed in tandem with Jane Duncan Architects for a mid-century modern house in Hertfordshire which combined naturalistic planting with architectural statements, areas of meadow and a productive garden. 

Joe Swift MSGD delighted the Awards' Charity Partner Horatio's Garden by winning the Healing, Learning or Community Award for the garden he designed for them at the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital.  Transforming the space into a contemporary garden to bring nature and beauty close to the spinal centre and provide patients and their relatives an oasis of calm in the clinical environment, the judges called it 'absolutely phenomenal.'   

Former Awards judge, Ann-Marie Powell MSGD also triumphed, picking up two awards for a luxury spa garden in Hertfordshire in the Commercial Landscapes category and the Hardscape category. 

Elsewhere, landscape company Garden Club London led by Tony Woods MSGD was named the winner in the Small Residential Garden category for what the judges described as 'a truly-secret garden creating a sanctuary in the middle of a busy, noisy area of London.