Three garden designs entered for the International Garden Festival in Quebec, looking at the relationship between materials, planting and nature in a sustainable manner.

'HIDdEn GARDEN' is a densely planted courtyard space, a hortus conclusus or secret garden, and is bounded on the two short sides by painted perforated timber screens. The inspiration for the planting is derived from the region itself, with the aim of attracting local birds and insects, in particular the American Goldfinch. The mix of plants has been chosen to create a long season of interest, with grasses being the main structure. By the late summer tall perennials and grass heads become the overarching elements in the garden and provide seed, a primary course of food for the finches. The perforated timber screen walls are constructed from locally sourced douglas fir plywood and are designed with viewing slots with hinged shutters at varying heights. The colours of the screens have been chosen to counterpoint the naturalistic planting.

'OKU' garden is based on the concept of the hidden centre and is envisaged as a series of glimpsed views of an intriguing interior, using vertical screens of indigenous timber and vertical planting to entice the visitor to take a journey to the heart of the space. The planting is chosen to create a series of discrete sensory zones - swaying grass, nodding flower heads, rustling branches, drawing the visitor through the space. High trees signify a partially hidden objective encouraging exploration of the space. Surfaces are mown grass and stone, locally sourced. Apart from its sensory qualities, proposed planting has been chosen to be robust and long-flowering.

'WASTE NOT wild lot' garden is an entirely artificial construct; a simple banked landscape comprising zones of post-consumer and construction waste arranged to support colonies of indigenous wild flowers. A path of recycled timber pallet boarding and recycled tumbled glass drainage strips bisects the garden through a cutting, dividing the landscape into north/south facing slopes. Planting zones relate to orientation and substrate types. The sides of the cutting are protected and supported by clear recycled acrylic vertical sheets which allow views through to the substrates, exposing the juxtaposition between the artificial strata and natural landscape.