Provender Nurseries is asking its customers to put forward a design for a large new border on its site in Kent, following its recent expansion into an adjoining paddock field.

Entrants to the competition are being asked to only use plants from the Proven Winners® range to create the border, and the winning design will be planted up as a living display on Provender Nurseries’ driveway.

The area would then be used as a demonstration and educational space, and maintenance would be carried out by the nursery team.

Judging the applications will be TV presenter and garden designer Mark Lane, Provender Nurseries’ sales director Richard Burt, and Esther Wientjens from Proven Winners. Applications close in January, with the winner set to be announced on 5 February. The winning design will then be planted in early spring.

“Everybody is going to see the space every time they come here to Provender Nurseries, and using Proven Winners is even more interesting because you have this limited palette of wonderful plants that we know are hardy and are going to do really well in the garden,” says Mark Lane. “It will be interesting to see how people put them together and, for me personally, it’s exciting to judge something like this.”

Provender Nurseries announced the launch of the Proven Winners® Design Competition at its recent ‘Problem Solving Plants’ event, in which plant lines that act as solutions to recurring issues in the industry, such as drought, extreme temperature tolerance and pest and disease resistance were showcased.

The Proven Winners® range of plants are the result of years of plant breeding. They have long flowering periods, compact growth habits, great tolerance for extreme temperatures, pest and disease resistance, multiple seasons of interest and low maintenance requirements.

“We are really happy to support the design competition at Provender,” says Esther Wientjens. “Proven Winners as a brand has been promoted quite a lot to the consumer, but for us the landscaping market is also very interesting and so we are really happy to get garden designers involved in using our Proven Winners plants in their designs.”

Full the full design brief and details on how to apply, click here.