Chelsea 2010: The Stumpery

A stumpery is a garden feature similar to a rockery but made from parts of dead trees. This can take the form of whole stumps, logs, pieces of bark or even worked timber such as railway sleepers or floorboards. The pieces are arranged artistically and plants, typically ferns, mosses and lichens are encouraged to grow around or on them. They provide a feature for the garden and a habitat for several types of wildlife.

We have re-interpreted this Victorian tradition into an artistic and modern sculptural water feature for the Chelsea Flower Show 2010. The inspiration evolved over several days worth of sketching and playing with various ideas to represent fabric and textiles within a garden design. 3D modelling was very important to help visualise the space and try out different scenarios – stump size, orientation, length etc.

The end result is a rugged carpet of stumps creates a randomly orientated and rough ground cover.