Gold at Chelsea

The medal was awarded for the Beverage Botanics garden in the continuous learning area of the Chelsea Flower Show and adds to Pershore's medal tally after the college also received gold at the Malvern Spring Show earlier in the month.

The garden was designed by college horticulture lecturer Steve Boxall, to fit the RHS theme ‘The Power of Plants’, illustrating the diverse and powerful role of plants in our lives. Steve said: "We are delighted to have won gold for the second year running. Staff and students have all worked incredibly hard on this garden - and their hard work has all paid off."

The Beverage Botanics garden tells the story of how plants have been used in beverages over the centuries, making beverages more tasty and - in some cases - safer to drink.

The garden comprises three main areas – a modern wine bar, showing how plants are used in alcoholic drinks; a street café, showing how plants are used in non-alcoholic drinks and a warehouse area showing how plants and plant products are imported and distributed. The garden is divided using a crop plant hedge containing some of the most commonly-used crops such as rye, barley, maize, potatoes and sugar cane.

Lecturer, Janet Prescott, said: “Most people don’t realise but almost all drinks – with the exception of some yogurt-based beverages – use plants in their production. Our garden is an educational journey, we start off by testing people’s knowledge about the use of plants in drinks and challenge them to think about how plants flavour and influence many of the beverages they enjoy.”

The garden was built by students and lecturers on the Higher National Diploma in Horticulture and the Advanced National Diploma in Landscaping. The horticulture students were responsible for researching the garden, including obtaining all the plant information and information on the origins of the drinks.

Landscaping student David Martino said: “This has been a great project to work on, it is so different from a normal garden but at the same time, we are getting skills and experience which will stand us in good stead in the world of work. It is very good for discipline and learning how to produce a first-class finish for public display.”

Some of the plants included in the garden are the commonly-recognised apples, for juice and cider, ginger root, used in ginger beer, tea and coffee.

Lesser known plant / drink associations include potatoes, used to make vodka, wormwood, used to flavour absinthe and the South American drink, yerba mate.