Everything is coming up rosy for a budding young pupil from East Hampshire as he will be youngest designer at one of the UK’s biggest gardening events of the year.
Jonny and Inigo Coller will be top of the plots from May 2 to 4 as the father-and-son from Headley will take part in the BBC Gardener’s World Spring Fair at Beaulieu.
The latter will be the event’s youngest garden designer as the green-fingered youngster has just turned nine.
Inigo has enjoyed gardening with his dad “ever since he could walk” but the father-and-son are now keen to branch out beyond the hedges of their village home.
Their generational link also fits in perfectly with the event’s “cultivating connections” theme with the pair being given a three-by-three metre plot to spruce up.
“I’ve always liked gardening and when I was younger I was mucking around, learning how to plant stuff and helping my dad out,” said Inigo.
“We had an idea that me and my dad are going to make a garden together because that’s what we do at home.”
The youngster added: “We’re calling it a ‘time together garden’ because my dad and I do everything together.”
Despite his tender age Inigo has been dishing the dirt in their family garden for a few years and he’s helped with hedge planting, vegetable and flower growing, and many other horticultural jobs around their plot.
The pair found out about the Spring Fair last year while their application to the “BBC equivalent of Chelsea” was quickly approved.
Jonny said: “We put in the application in January and found out pretty much straight away that we had been accepted as Bob, the head of horticulture at the BBC, got in touch.
“It’s like the BBC’s version of Chelsea. It’s a smaller version but it gets 25,000 people through the week and it’s big thing, with designers and people selling things.”
Jonny and Inigo had to provide designs but there was no prototype with their homely plot coming together for the first time at the New Forest event.
But it’s been a father-and-son job all the way through the process from initial brainstorming to choosing plants and features for the Beaulieu plot.
Inigo said: “Me and my dad had a talk about what we wanted to do and we started to put a garden with these ideas in mind.”
His dad said: “We’ve been sourcing our plants, visiting nurseries and we’ve got hedging being shipped in but the first time it will all come together is there.
“One of the fun things is that we thought we would reflect the fact that sometimes you get distracted, so we will leave a planting hole unfilled but with a pot next to it.
“There will also be two pairs of little and large spades and wellies to reflect us.”
Jonny also hopes their niche presence at the event will also give his burgeoning garden design a boost, for examples check @floreat_gardens on Instagram.