Landscape & Urban Design Issue 32 2018 | Page 31

The John Deere garden celebrating 100 years of tractors has been awarded a Silver Gilt medal at RHS Chatsworth Flower Show. Designed by Elspeth Stockwell and Jo Fairfax, the garden features a striking ring of 100 golden tractors rising above upright grasses that represent fields of crops and meadow style planting portraying the rural landscape. The charred oak circular seating and backdrop hint at farm buildings dotted across the countryside. Nature looks on as tractors cultivate the fields. Elspeth Stockwell is a qualified horticulturist and medal- winning garden designer. Artist and sculptor Jo Fairfax develops lighting and sculptural installations and his work has won many awards. Both designers live in the East Midlands, near to John Deere’s UK & Ireland headquarters at Langar, Nottingham. This year is a special anniversary for John Deere as the company marks 100 years of selling tractors. Blacksmith John Deere founded the company that bears his name in 1837, in Illinois, when he invented a new type of plough but it was 1918 before the company moved into the tractor business. A century of tractor innovation has followed, including the launch in 1963 of the company’s first lawn tractor, the 7hp 110, drawing on the experience and technology of its larger agricultural cousins. John Deere has grown to become one of the world’s leading manufacturers of agricultural, turf and lawn & garden equipment, its ethos firmly rooted in its founder’s core values of integrity, quality, commitment and innovation. 31