He may be just 12, but Lucas Hatch is today celebrating an achievement many established gardeners would be proud of.
Lucas, a pupil at Farlingaye High School in Woodbridge, was asked to create a show garden after winning the RHS Young Gardener of the Year competition in 2012 and was rewarded with a silver gilt and first place in the show garden category.
He said: “I have been gardening since I was four, my grandparents live next door to us and they got me into it.”
The young gardener confessed: “This was actually the first garden I have ever designed. I designed it on the computer then my granddad helped me bring it all together.”
The garden was a true family affair, with Lucas directing and his grandfather, father and younger brother helping create the masterpiece at Trinity Park over the past few days.
Lucas explained: “I have a vegetable area within the garden, and in the Veg Trug I have beans, lettuce, leeks and carrots, and there are marigolds at either end to stop the black fly getting them.
“I have potatoes growing in sacks and rhubarb and strawberries in the pots.”
Lucas wrote to several companies asking for help and was rewarded with plants and a greenhouse for the garden.
He said: “In the future I would like a career in gardening, I think I would like to concentrate on the landscape side of it, although I do enjoy the planting.”
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