Although Chelsea is over for another year and Leeds’ silver-gilt medal-winning show garden has been dismantled, it is not the end of it.Later this year the garden will be re-created at a permanent home at Roundhay Park to be enjoyed by the people of Leeds and visitors to the city.

As always the build up to Chelsea and the Show week itself was hugely enjoyable although tiring and nerve-racking at the same time. We were extremely pleased win a silver-gilt medal particular considering some of the competition we were up against.

As one visitor described it, Leeds’ Parks and Countryside Service’s achievement was like an amateur athlete winning silver at the Olympics.
I would echo Council Leader Andrew Carter’s words that the award says a lot about the expertise and skills of the people employed by the Service.

But ‘The Largest Room in the House’ was not just about winning awards. It was also designed as a respectful tribute to the people of Leeds, the UK and the rest of the world who gave their lives in the First World War, and many of the comments we have had have been to tell us we achieved that. You can read some of them on our pages of the BBC’s Chelsea web site.

It was a particular honour that 109 year-old World War One veteran Harry Patch travelled all the way from Bristol to visit our version of the Talbot House garden he visited while fighting in Belgium in 1916.

I was also so proud of our Leeds schools competition winners Patrick Simpson and Billee Brack who had their moving poems read to the Chelsea crowds by actor and friend of the Leeds garden Ian McNeice.

And none of it would have been possible without our sponsors, Peter Gilman and Leeds-based company GMI Construction, the Royal British Legion and Toc H, who have all taken an active role in the garden’s development and presentation.

Along with other members of the Leeds’ Chelsea team, I intend to spend a little time tending my own gardens but I will certainly be there later this year to welcome ‘The Largest Room in the House’ to Roundhay Park.

Denise Preston

To see the photographs of the Silver Gilt-winning garden and its opening guests, who included 109 year-old trenches veteran Harry Patch, stage and screen star Ian McNeice as garden founder the Reverend ‘Tubby’ Clayton, Juliet Stevenson and the Llewelyn-Bowens. including, Leeds garden, click here.