'Our show garden celebrates differences - just like our charity'

The creators of a garden at the Harrogate Spring Flower Show have said it celebrates differences in the same way as the charity it represents.

The Winnie the Pooh-themed display was created by students, staff and volunteers at Horticap, which gives adults with learning and other disabilities horticulture and other skills.

The children's cartoon series turned 100 years old in December, but Erica Ward, who co-created the garden, said the timing was a coincidence.

"We realised the narrative Pooh and how similar it was with the Hundred Acre Wood being such a home for everybody," she said.

"That's what we're about at Horticap. The garden is such an extension of what we are."

Students at Horticap were involved in creating parts of the garden, Ward said, painting pebbles which formed a stream under a bridge.

Her colleague Emma Hudson added: "The students have gone home looking like smurfs, blue from head to toe, and nobody's been bothered by that."

During the "joyous" process, they talked about what they were doing - and why - sharing stories about the different elements and colours of the garden and how they related to differences between people, Hudson explained.

Others based at the charity's Harrogate headquarters had produced other elements by crocheting and creating model bees.

"Everybody's unique and everybody's got a skill," Hudson said.

"We celebrate that at Horticap."

The garden received the highest number of points ever awarded to a community creation at the annual show, the charity said.

Ward said: "We know that the students will just be absolutely over the moon.

"They'll be chuffed."

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