Yorkshire garden handed tourism gong

A garden and greenhouse attraction has won a coveted award for tourism in a recent regional competition.

According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Scampstons Walled Garden won the Visitor Attraction of the Year title for sites welcoming up to 50,000 visitors at the Yorkshire Moors and Coast Tourism Awards.

It is listed as one of the RHSs Recommended Gardens and came first out of an initial list of 200 local attractions that was whittled down to a five-strong shortlist of top sites.

Although it is closed for the winter, garden and greenhouse fans will once again be able to visit Scampston from April 2nd 2010, which is Good Friday.

One of the defining features of the garden is the trademark drifts of grass that Dutch plantsman Piet Oudolf installed during his 1999 revamp.

The banks of Molinia caerulea are placed in waves across the site, making the display look not dissimilar to a prairie.

As part of the renovation of the attraction, Oudolf also won acclaim for his transformation of the old Victorian kitchen garden into a contemporary site.

In other news, the RHS has recently had its 10,000th applicant in the Campaign for School Gardening.