A garden celebrating Lighthouse as a platform for creativity won a Gold Award at the BBC Gardener’s World Live Spring Fair at Beaulieu last weekend. 

The Beacon Garden, by Poole-based designer Matt Evans, was awarded Gold in the Best Showcase Garden category at the event that brought thousands of visitors to Beaulieu over the bank holiday weekend.

Matt, a Lighthouse Development Ambassador whose business, The Garden Room Living & Landscape Studio, is based on Poole paid tribute to the work Lighthouse does promoting the creative industries across the region. 

He explains: “The Beacon Garden is a coastal garden that, like Lighthouse, is different every day and, like Lighthouse, it has been designed to promote and provide a nurturing platform for creative arts and culture to be showcased and thrive.” 

Representing Lighthouse and its work in developing artists in the community, members of Poole Leisure Painters – who have met at Lighthouse since 1981 – set up and worked in The Beacon Garden, responding in paint to the garden and interacting with visitors. 

“Lighthouse is extremely proud of Matt and the Garden Room Living & Landscape Studio – The Beacon Garden is an incredible achievement and richly deserves its award,” says Sue Lloyd, Head of Development & Partnerships at Lighthouse. 

“The involvement of our communities, and the work we do to engage them is very important to us, so it was particularly pleasing that so many visitors to Matt's wonderful show garden were so keen to learn more about what we do.” 

The Beacon Garden, sponsored by Elliots, also provided a hint of what’s to come at Lighthouse as Matt will be helping plan, design and construct the outdoor extension to the Beacon café. 

An immersive gardening experience, with a mix of design ideas, planting inspiration and garden shopping, saw celebrity guests Adam Frost (Fri), Carol Klein (Sat/Sun) and Arit Anderson (Sun) on hand to offer advice to visitors. On the panel of expert show garden assessors were multi award-winning garden designers Richard Barnard (Kings Oak Landscapes), Shaun Beale (Woodslee Landscapes), and Alexandra Froggatt (Alexandra Froggatt Garden Design), and Garden News’ editor at large, Ian Hodgson.