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Award-winning garden champions Britain’s endangered rainforests
The aim of a new garden now open in Bristol is to celebrate precious and increasingly endangered rainforests in Britain.
Foxgloves, hart’s tongue, ferns and mosses all feature in the award-winning rainforest garden, which has now found a permanent home at Bristol Zoo Project.
It was designed by Zoe Claymore, who was inspired by the Wildlife Trust’s 100-year programme to safeguard rainforests across the British Isles for the future.
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The garden was previously shown at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, where it won the People’s Choice Award.
Brian Zimmerman from Bristol Zoological Society said he hoped the garden will allow visitors to “reflect on the health and wellbeing benefits natural habitats can bring, as well as the importance of these precious environments”.
The rainforest garden is now located on the outskirts of Bristol at the new Bristol Zoo Project on a much larger site than its original plot at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show – photo: Clive Nicholls
Vast expanses of the UK were once temperate rainforests, but these moss-covered ancient trees and their lichens are now rare sights due to deforestation and overgrazing.
Claymore, who has won an award for her “renters retreat” project showing how a small, shady courtyard can be turned into a wildlife haven, told Bristol24/7: “I think a lot of us, particularly people in the West Country, will have walked in a woodland that is a temperate rainforest without even knowing it.
“The UK has some of the most precious rainforests in existence across the globe, and they’re amazing habitats for hosting wildlife and mitigating flooding. Moss can absorb vast amounts of water – it’s phenomenal.”
“While what visitors will see for the first two to three years isn’t strictly a British rainforest but, over time, it will come. And the plants used are ones that people can put in their gardens at home and would happily work in pots as well.”
The garden brings a rainforest landscape to the Bristol area for the first time – photo: Aviva
Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said: “Our beautiful rainforest garden richly deserves this opportunity to shine again.
“I can’t think of a better new home for it than this wonderful zoo, where it’ll have a chance to mature and grow and where generations of children will be able to play in it and learn about our natural world.”
Zoe Claymore says she wants to help promote and protect rare habitats by using lichens, ferns and foxgloves – photo: Betty Woolerton
Speaking about what she hopes visitors will take away from the garden, Claymore said: “For me, the best thing about the garden is to show young people that conservation starts at home.
“What I hope is that kids get interested and then go plant something in their own garden. For me, that is really powerful.
She added: “We’re showing that it is possible to create something beautiful sustainably, using our wonderful native species.”
The British Rainforest Garden, which can be found in the zoo’s Sanctuary Garden, was funded by grant-making charity Project Giving Back and supported by Aviva.
Main photo: Clive Nicholls
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