Japanese designer wins Chelsea Flower Show garden of the year
Japanese landscape designer Kazuyuki Ishihara won the garden of the year award for the first time at the Chelsea Flower Show, a globally famous landscaping competition in London, in May with a Japanese tea garden.
A veteran participant at the show, Ishihara also won the gold medal in the show garden category for the first time among other awards at the annual event held by the Royal Horticultural Society, Britain's leading garden charity, according to his office.
It was the 13th gold medal overall for the 67-year-old, who has been competing in the show since 2004. Describing the show garden gold as the most difficult to obtain, he said he was "proud" to have won it with his "Japanese Tea Garden."
He also won the People's Choice award, voted on by the public.
The garden, themed on communication and harmony and called "Cha No Niwa" in Japanese, uses plants and trees commonly seen in the Japanese countryside such as Japanese maples and irises around its tea house.
"I wanted to convey the beauty of the spirit of Japan that enables heart-to-heart communications through tea and beautiful scenery in a world of chaos," said Ishihara.
Japanese designer Masataka Taniguchi, 42, won the gold medal in the category of container gardens featuring small-scale landscapes with his work "Komorebi Garden." Komorebi is a Japanese word for sunlight piercing through a tree canopy.
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