This is the story of the most well-travelled garden in the UK.
Inspired by the remarkable toughness of native plants while on a walking holiday on the wind-swept Shetland Islands, Motor Neurone Disease Association co-founder Martin Anderson recognised the similarities between Shetland’s seemingly fragile plants, sheltering where they could from the unforgiving weather, and MND sufferers being helped by the association.
Realising that an entry to the RHS Chelsea Flower show could help to raise awareness of the cause, and with the help of the people of Shetland, designer Sue Hayward and a small army of helpers, the authentic 1940s Shetland Croft House Garden was created using Shetland plants and stone.
This simple idea became an award-winning garden earning an RHS Gold Medal and the much-coveted Radio Times People's Choice Award 2008.
This DVD tells the remarkable story of how one man's vision came to be realised.
It follows the journey of the project, from the dilapidated Shetland croft house the stone was taken from, to showing how the materials were transported and the entry at the show. It also features interviews with those who helped and reactions from gardening celebrities Alan Titchmarsh and Kim Wilde.
The film ends on the project’s return to Shetland. Rather than wasting the plants and materials, the crofthouse garden has been rebuilt at North Roe, Northmavine, where you can visit it - at the most northerly part of the Shetland mainland.
Also included on the DVD is a short film about motor neurone disease and clips from a charity walk and bike ride in North Roe which raised money for the charity.
Feature: The MND Crofthouse Garden - Shetland to Chelsea and Back: 64 mins
DVD Extra: A Short Film about Motor Neurone Disease: 14 mins
A Digital Imagineering Production
Some of the profits from the sale of this DVD go to the Motor Neurone Disease Association and the Scottish MND Association.
Click here for the BBC page for the Shetland Crofthouse Garden at RHS Chelsea, where you can read some of the comments about the garden project.
This DVD is dedicated to Penny Bassey, an MND sufferer, who had been to see the Crofthouse Garden at Chelsea with her husband, Michael, and had fallen in love with it. Penny died two months after visiting Chelsea and here Michael tells the moving story of his pilgrimage to the far north and his quest to find the garden.
