Day Two & Three – The Nelson Trust and blue skies

Day Two was the arrival of Jack Everett, an expert in designing and building sustainable structures using bamboo.  He is a designer and artist who collaborates with groups to inspire and train them to make temporary or permanent constructions, sharing ideas and celebrating team work. He arrived at the Old Rectory with bamboo at the ready awaiting his team of clients and staff from the Nelson Trust, who were to help him create and build the finished piece called LECONE.

They all gathered on the tennis court to begin preparing and creating the sculptural piece. Jack showed them how to use a piece of string to mark out on the circles where certain measurements were to help with the construction and placement of the bamboo canes later on.

A lot of teamwork was needed to complete each task from measuring out where the sculpture would sit, to sawing off lengths of bamboo.

I copper cap was used to hold together the bamboo at the peak of the sculpture. Jack got a helping hand from two of the volunteers as they slotted the bamboo into place.

The top section of the sculpture started to take shape and the bamboo was joined together around the base with elastic bands once they were in the right position.

The construction of the base of the cone proved a little more difficult. Jack had prepared some pieces before hand to show the Nelson Trust how the pieces would look. They then used a crafty frame to lean the joined together sections on to get that curved cone shape. It was hot work, and regular refills of water and top-ups of sun cream were needed!

Finally once the two sections were created it was just down to joining them together. The Nelson Trust passed the top piece over to Jack who was standing in the centre of the bottom piece ready to place the two pieces together correctly.

With a bit of fiddling and tying of elastic bands the sculpture was complete!

They all looked very proud of what they had achieved and I’m sure the public will enjoy looking at their sculpture and reading about how it came about.

I couldn’t help admiring their backdrop of gorgeous yellow blossoming trees all day.

Meanwhile Puck enjoyed a quiet moment by the river, guarding his river bank and house from the Spaniels that had arrived with the students and teachers of Stroud College. What a good guard dog!

Day Three was really just ploughing on with getting artists installed. I also cut up material to create black outs for the tennis court hut, ready for the arrival of the McGuire’s installation on the weekend. I also got a chance to go around the garden and see what had already been installed.

Jonathon Garratt’s Destination X makes a colourful appearance by the square bridge. I love the bursts of colours throughout the garden created by foliage and sculptures alike.

I also couldn’t resist taking a photo of the pool area, and I’ve been rather hoping that I will have a spare moment to dip my feet in soon!

Jacque Pavlosky installed her piece on Day Two, Floating Spires is located in the lily pond, and is made up of beautiful vibrant colours of blues, purples and greens.

It’s been a busy few days, and the garden is looking beautiful. We just all hope the weather stays this way for the majority of the show so that the public can enjoy the garden as we have been doing in the past few days.