LSN Industry Voices : Andrew Try at ComXo

When you are talking about building massive structures made of willow, digging up historic Crown property, creating a wild flower meadow in one of the highest security area’s in the UK, on one of the most famous vista’s in Britain…. and doing it all for the Queen on a budget and timescale that would make Groundforce gulp it focuses the mind.

Luckily as serendipity goes we have managed to put together a team of extraordinary horticulturists, artists and steel fabricators to deliver our vision and convince sponsors and supporters to give us the resources to deliver it.

Over the next few weeks I will be blogging here to keep you updated with the progress of our Grand Design and keep you posted on the challenges we face and how we manage them.  Please feel free to re post this and tweet about it.

Three years ago I was leafing through some papers in my family archive and came across pictures from the 1890′s of Triumphant Arch’s that had been built by the people of Windsor for particular events in the then Sovereign’s reign.  These structures were massive in size and ambition and often were constructed from Papier Mache.

Here are some examples

As you can see these arches are impressive in size.  The first picture is castle hill where Queen Victoria’s statue now sits and the hight of the arch appears to tower over the top of what is now the Edinburgh Woolen Mill.  Pretty substantial.

These magnificent structures gave me the inspiration of the Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society (where I am Chairman) building our own Arch to commemorate Her Majesty’s Coronation and I wrote to Buckingham Palace to suggest the idea.  To my surprise they replied that The Queen liked the idea and suddenly we had to think about how we might design an Arch for the 21st century.

A Local with Knowledge

Susann Laughton runs the on-line plant finder site Pantify (www.plantify.com) with her husband Peter.  As a member of the RWRHS I had chatted to her and knew that the previous year she had been involved in the production of a garden at Hampton Court that had won Gold Medal.  I spoke to Susann about the idea and she arranged a meeting with award-winning garden designer John Warland.  The site we had decided on for the Arch was the top of the Long Walk at Cambridge gate one of the most iconic vistas in Britain.

A design for the 21st Century

John Warland is a man with a clear vision of contemporary horticulture and the vision he created for The Coroanation Arch was far removed from anything that that had gone before.

The Vision was expressed by Susann as follows ” It is our vision to present Her Majesty The Queen with a modern coronation arch that will symbolise her traditional roots connected to our modern times by using traditional/natural materials, sourced locally in Berkshire and surroundings, presented in a contemporary and minimalistic way. 2013 is not about being opulent but thrifty and respecting to nature”

Johns design was simply extraordinary:

Once again I wrote back to Buckingham Palace to present this modern design with mixed expectation as to what the reply would be.  To my delight and excitement the Palace said yes and the project was accepted.  However soon the realisation of the enormity of the design began to sink in and the stark reality of how to construct and fund such a structure.

As I have posted before I am Chairman of the Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society.  I am pleased to report that The Society’s annual Grow for the Show line up was announced earlier this week and an unprecedented number of tickets have already been sold.

Celebrity gardener Simon Hewitt (www.mrsimonhewitt.com) has achieved fame for designing a number of stunning spaces including the vegetable garden of the  famous River Cafe.  It is on this subject of planting that Simon will be educating us and answering our questions at Gardeners Hall Windsor on Friday the 8th February at 7pm.

Finally we will be delivering a presentation on the Society’s ambition to create a Floral Arch to recognise the Diamond anniversary of the Coronation of our Patron Her Majesty the Queen.

The evening will give members a time to meet, share a pint of beer from The Windsor and Eton Brewery learn about what to grow and how to grow it and be fed by one of the best chefs in the country and all of this will be available to members of the Society for the extraordinary price of £5.00.

Become a member and join our brilliant, fun and local community…its better than watching TV! www.rwrhs.com

I have been trying to get sponsorship for The Royal Windsor Rose and Horticultural Society recently and have found it difficult to get across just how good our Summer Show is.  So taking a leaf out of how we market our Call2 product I decided to put together a little montage using Windows Live Movie Maker.  It took me all of a hour to get really cracking and 2 hours for the finished piece with music to boot.

Click to see Video

Click on the picture and see how effective it is.  Then get your diary out and pencil in next July 13th and bring your family to next years show!  If you are interested in sponsorship we have a number of mouth watering packages that I can talk to you about….and remember its all for charity!

Here are some more photos taken during my morning walk over the last month …

Deer in the mist

The Royal Stag

Monarch of the Glen