The Flower of Life title alludes to the geometric pattern in the patio design. Here you will find Art in a garden setting inspired by ancient civilizations. The Romans for example built urban gardens that often included frescoes and mosaics. ‘The Flower of Life’ garden is Dawn’s homage to the past with her contemporary mosaics, modern fresco, geometric patio, and planting combining to create a garden with texture, form and colour.
The garden incorporates modern technologies. Addaset Resin Bound gravel supplied by Redlough Landscapes ensures that the patio is fully permeable and therefore environmentally friendly. A weatherproof digital panel of one of Dawn’s paintings provides a modern take on a traditional fresco painting. The mosaics in the garden were created by Dawn who is working in partnership with Dominic Loughran of Dream Gardens to build her show garden.
Dawn Aston is a visual artist and garden designer based in Co. Antrim who specialises in bespoke mosaics for indoor and outdoor spaces. Dawn’s experiences working at the Chelsea Flower Show in Diarmuid Gavin’s Suburban Garden Eden in 2004, and Elma Fenton’s Moat and Castles garden in 2005 inspired Dawn to do her own show gardens at Bloom, where she won awards in 2009 and 2010. Her garden designs are driven by her artistic vision and creativity. Dawn has also facilitated numerous community arts and horticulture projects since 2005, and was selected as an Olympic torchbearer in 2012 after being nominated by a schoolgirl involved in a cross community Art and Landscape project in North Belfast. Dawn has experience as a lecturer in horticulture and garden design at both SERC and Greenmount College in N. Ireland.
Source: Bloom – The Flower of Life Garden | Small Gardens | Bloom 2013
