A moving tale of horse rescue will feature at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2017 with an artisan garden inspired by and celebrating charity World Horse Welfare’s 90 year legacy of helping horses.
The concept, brought to life by design duo Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith, will tell the story of a horse rescued from a small, derelict stable in a dark corner of the garden and nursed back to health under World Horse Welfare’s care – now living in a bright, open meadow where he can thrive and continue his journey to rehoming.
Designed to provide a poignant, visual representation of World Horse Welfare’s work, the garden will pay tribute to the charity’s supporters who have played a vital role in the past 90 years whilst highlighting the need to continue shining a spotlight on invisible horses around the world, whose suffering goes unnoticed or ignored.
World Horse Welfare Director of Fundraising, Emma Williams, said:“We are delighted that the World Horse Welfare Garden will feature at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2017 and want to express heartfelt thanks to our garden designers, plus our very kind and generous private donor who has funded the garden.
“Exhibiting at RHS Chelsea provides an invaluable opportunity to engage with both new and existing supporters, as well as showcasing our work, to a new audience in a way which is completely unique to anything we have ever done before.
“We hope the garden will be thought-provoking and emotive. We want to encourage people to reflect on the plight of neglected and abused horses and be inspired to join us in taking action to help them. Without the support of the public, we would simply not be able to continue our work and so the garden will pay tribute to all the people who support us in many different ways from those who add their voices to our campaigning actions to those who rehome our horses, take part in fundraising events or choose to leave a gift in their will.”
Garden designers Adam Woolcott and Jonathan Smith said: “We were delighted to be asked to design the World Horse Welfare Garden at next year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Chelsea is the ‘Oscars’ of the gardening world and to be able to exhibit at the highest level is an honour.
“It was after visiting one of the charity’s Rescue and Rehoming centres, meeting some of the horses that had been rescued from abuse and neglect and hearing some of their stories that we decided we definitely wanted to be part of the project to help shine a light on the plight of these amazing animals. We were already aware of the work of World Horse Welfare from one of our customers, who is a keen supporter of the charity, and being huge animal lovers, we knew that we had to get involved.