A MINIATURE version of Gilbert White’s garden won a Silver-Gilt medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

As part of Gilbert White’s House and Garden’s year-delayed celebrations of Gilbert White’s 300th birthday, the Selborne museum teamed up with Sparsholt College to produce a garden called The Natural Kalendar.

Sponsored by seed and plant specialist Thompson and Morgan, the garden took climate change as its theme, showing how observations by Gilbert White - who lived from 1720-93 and was known as ’the father of ecology’ - enlightened people to the changing seasons and the activity of species.

The Natural Kalendar brought to life phenology - the study of nature’s life cycles and seasonal variations in climate - from 300 years ago to the present day, looking into the potential impact on the future survival of plant species.

Visitors saw features from White’s garden at The Wakes - the thatched, spinning Wine Pipe Seat, a mini Haha wall and the Six Quarters, recreated using plantings familiar to him alongside cutting-edge cultivars such as entries to Thompson and Morgan’s Plant of the Year contest.

The garden featured slate signs, changed daily, quoting from Gilbert White’s manuscripts for The Natural History of Selborne, a publication never out of print and a reference work for naturalists, ecologists and ornithologists including Gerald Durrell and David Attenborough.

Postponement of the show from May 2020 until September 2021 by coronavirus meant two groups of Sparsholt students worked on the design and building of the garden, because students on the college’s level three horticulture course are given the opportunity.

The change in date also meant changing the plants from spring-flowering ones to those which flourish in autumn.

Celebrity visitors to the garden included radio presenters Nick Grimshaw and Jo Whiley, comedians Lee Mack and Bill Bailey, Countryfile presenter Tom Heap, and RHS Chelsea Flower Show presenters Angellica Bell and Monty Don.