The World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden has won the inaugural Environmental Innovation Award at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

Open to all those in the Show and Sanctuary Garden categories which underwent the Green Garden Audit this year, the new award recognises the efforts of designers and contractors to reduce the environmental impact of their garden.

Garden designer Giulio Giorgi and contractor Landesigns beat 10 others to take home the award. Sponsored by Project Giving Back, The World Child Cancer Nurturing Garden was a “beautifully simple example of merging old techniques with new”, says Malcolm Anderson, RHS head of sustainability, who sat on the judging panel alongside Liz Nicholson – managing director of Nicholsons – and chartered landscape architect Paul Cowell.

“The garden has been created using products made entirely from soil and timber and in its construction no power tools have been used, only hand tools, so it is a fine example of how we can design and build gardens more sustainably in the future.”

He says this year’s show has “marked something of a seismic shift” in the way that designers and contractors have approached the gardens.

RHS director general Clare Matterson echos this, adding: “The efforts all designers and contractors at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show have gone to in order to reduce their gardens impact on the environment should be commended and demonstrates fantastic progress and a huge shift forward as we continue to work collaboratively on our journey to make the show and indeed the whole industry adopt more sustainable practices in garden design.”