The Evaders Garden at the 2015 Chelsea Flower Show
A beautiful garden designed by Burgundy evader's son John Everiss as a tribute to the escape lines
Occupied Europe WW2 - an RAF airmen has just parachuted out of a crashing bomber, his ghostly image briefly shelters in an old abandoned church his parachute trailed out before him. Inscribed on the walls the names of people who could help him but would later pay with their lives.
Stan Everiss, the designer’s father, was an RAF evader who was helped to freedom by ordinary French citizens after being shot down in 1943. Inspired by these acts of selfless bravery, the garden’s design reflects the bond between helper and evader.
A sculpture of a young pilot, seconds after parachuting into France, hides in the ruins of a war-damaged church. His eyes look up to a stained glass window where two young French people are reaching out to help him. The wall has a code poem engraved into a tablet, as well as the names of Resistance fighters, many of whom lost their lives during the war.
A mass planting of perennials and annuals surrounds the sculpture as nature reclaims the abandoned church … www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-chelsea-flower-show/exhibitors/2015/gardens/the-evaders-garden
War and wildness conquer white and lilac blue at the Chelsea flower show
John Everiss’s memorial to his father recreates a bombed-out French church, as colour returns to the UK’s top gardening event …www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/15/war-and-wildness-conquer-white-and-lilac-blue-at-chelsea-flower-show
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