AN innovative and environmentally friendly garden design by an Enfield college has won a top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Capel Manor College's Green Manure design showed off a method of restoring vitality to old soil using methods dating back to medieval times.

Philippa O’Brien, a lecturer at the college and professional garden designer, came up with the design, which featured ten raised flower beds containing crops which retain nitrogen in the soil.

Green manures are placed on the soil to restore the balance of organic matter which is depleted by plants.

Ms O'Brien explained the method, which has been used for centuries: “Medieval farmers used green manures as part of a four tier growing system: a crop would be grown in every fourth field to replace the nitrogen lost from the previous season’s growing.

“Green manures are coming back into the fore: the flowers are often very pretty, while they are particularly good at suppressing weeds, and can be dug back into the soil after they have been cropped.”

She was assisted by 15 pupils from the Bullsmoor Lane college, who worked for three months on the design which won a gold Continuous Learning Award at the famous flower show.