Ten years ago designer Cleve West won his first gold medal at RHS Chelsea Flower Show with the Saga Insurance Garden.

The garden was recreated in the grounds of company’s head office at Enbrook Park, near Folkestone, and Cleve went on to become a RHS Chelsea favourite.

Cleve, who will be creating the M&G Garden 2016 for the main sponsor at this year’s show, said: “I can’t believe my first gold at Chelsea was a decade ago. I would really like to go back and see the Saga Insurance Garden. I loved the way it turned out.

“The garden had simple lines but there was always a sense of energy and inspiration about it.”

He added: “It is so good when a Main Avenue garden can be reconstructed. Amazingly, we found a space exactly the right size outside the Saga Pavilion which houses the company’s canteen and creche, from where the garden could be viewed exactly as it was at RHS Chelsea.

“No changes were necessary and views from within the garden have been improved with rolling, tree-covered hills and even a glimpse out to sea.”

Cleve’s M&G Garden 2016 is inspired by an ancient oak woodland and the garden echoes the landscape of Exmoor where he lived as a teenager. His parents ran a hotel and he says ‘anyone who has been in that trade will know how hard you have to work’.

To take a break, Cleve would wander across the moor and take in the natural, rugged scenery.

He said: “I am not copying Exmoor, I can just capturing an essence of the place. It made an early impression on me; the peace, the openness and the huge oak trees. I had no vision of being a landscape designer at that time.

“I only got into gardens after I had moved to London. I was working in town and would help my elderly aunt with her garden; it was then I realised that this was something I would really like to do. Something I could do.

“I was largely self-taught but a small legacy from my aunt when she died allowed me to enrol on a garden design course with John Brookes at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1990. I self-financed my first show garden at Hampton Court in 1994.

“Natural landscape is always an inspiration. The art world, painting and sculpture, is also a great resource for ideas and I also love creating a little bit of theatre while working with talented craftsmen and women.”

Since the Saga Insurance Garden gold in 2006, Cleve has gone on to win many more RHS Gold Medals. He was the first designer to win Best in Show two years’ running (2011 for the Daily Telegraph and 2012 for Brewin Dolphin).

Cleve’s book, Our Plot, celebrates the allotment he and his partner Christine have nurtured for years in Bushy Park, Middlesex.

He said: “Running a garden design business means I often find I am stuck at my computer when I want to be outdoors. My main problem is being short of time and I miss it when I can not get along to the allotment. Being outside is where I am happiest.

CLEVE WEST'S 2016 CHELSEA GARDEN

The M&G Garden 2016 is an oak-woodland inspired garden with a sunken terrace and pool with a stone and gravel path running through woodland edge planting and rocks.

It includes Downy Oak (Quercus pubescens), Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum), Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum), Whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), Golden Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha), Brook Thistle (Cirsium atropurpureum), Mountain Cranesbill (Geranium pyrenaicum Bill Wallis), Siberian Flag (Iris sibirica) and Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca).

Cleve said: “I will leave a couple of features right until the end. It would be boring if I knew exactly what the garden was going to be like!”

SHOW DETAILS

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show runs from Tuesday, 24 to Saturday, May 28.

Visit rhs.org.uk and mandgchelsea.co.uk