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The £5 million garden at heart of Olympic site
Rebecca Lowe03.11.08
A GARDEN celebrating seven centuries of British plant collecting will form the colourful floral centrepiece at the 2012 Olympics site.
Designer Sarah Price, 28, has been selected to lead the project because of her preference for straightforward plants and flowers, in the tradition of such renowned gardeners as Gertrude Jekyll or Vita Sackville-West, rather than decking and water features gimmicks so beloved of "celebrity" gardeners.
Parklands director for the Olympic Delivery Authority, John Hopkins, said: "We have a great tradition of landscape design and garden design in this country," and the garden will form part of a park plans for which will be unveiled on Thursday by the ODA for the site of the games in Stratford.
Thousands of plant species and native woodland trees will fill the £5million garden, which will be divided into four geographical zones Europe and the Mediterranean, the Americas, Asia, and the southern hemisphere.
The £200million park will be about the size of St James's Park, near Buckingham Palace. The garden will run along a widened branch of the river on either side of the park's main entrance, between the main stadium and the aquatic centre.
Ms Price is the youngest designer responsible for a major project at the Olympics.
Commenting on her design, she said: "It's really a giant painting in three dimensions." Ms Price will oversee the planting under the overall direction of American landscape designer George Hargreaves, who designed the open spaces for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Reader views (6)
Sarah Price's garden will apparently take us through four periods of garden history. Would they be the C15 royal park, late C19 football pitches, early C20 allotments and late C20 community woodland (Bully Fen, planted by local people) all of which will have been destroyed for the Olympics? Would make an interesting "giant painting in three dimensions".
- Lisa, Hackney
I'd rather they hadn't trashed the Eastway Allotments.
- Steve, Dalston, Hackney
Nice yes, but there is NO need to chop down Greenwich Park when there are many more suitable places for equestrianism.
- Richard, Kensington, England
If the Olympic Delivery Authority are going to value plants from all over the world, then charity should begin at home and they should move the equestrian events away from Greenwich Park!
It almost beggars belief that Parklands director, John Hopkins, can go on record as saying that "we have a great tradition of landscape design and garden design in this country"! Exactly! That's why hundreds of people are backing the "hooves off Greenwich" campaign.
- Sally Wainman, Ipswich England
A garden is a nice idea but a bit hypocritical as established allotments were torn up and public football pitches tarmaced over first.
- Cam, East London/Essex
The garden is to the north east of the stadium, bisected by the old Waterworks river, one of three rivers that enclose the stadium itself. For those that don't remember, the old site was a fridge mountain. Breakers yards clogged the lanes with old bangers, oil ran in the gutters. This will be a plant-lovers garden, mature native trees remain on the site so there will be a wonderful mix of old and new and plants from all over the world that can now be grown in Britain. I'm not selfish just because I live in East London, this is a genuinely exciting idea and part of the legacy of the games which won 2012 in the first place.
- Dr Susan Porter, Bow
