Contemporary Buddhist Garden by Greenwich graduate

Congratulations to Fernando Gonzalez on a Silver Gilt Medal at the 2013 RHS Chelea Flower Show. “The Sound of Silence”, by Fernando Gonzalez, was entered in the Fresh Gardens category, in which designers are told to ‘think outside the box’. It was inspired by Japanese Zen gardens and was created as a ‘koan’, a Zen riddle used to encourage meditation. Koans represent the course of human life, depicting nature in condensed form.
The austere design features white waves of rocks, made from acrylic, and a bonsai tree. This simplicity encourages visitors to find the garden’s deeper significance, while the garden overall provides escape from the stress of modern life. Fernando studied Garden Design at Greenwich, setting up his own successful landscape gardening practice in 2006. He has won several medals for his work, which has been described in the Daily Telegraph as “unashamedly 21st century”. He points out that, like koan riddles, there is no right answer in reacting to his garden. “There is no explanation [to a koan],” he says. “You have the clues here for the riddle…it’s up to you for whatever you feel. “I have always been attracted to Zen. There is something magic and enigmatic about it,” he adds.