The Gardening World Cup- The Angel of Peace

“This is without doubt the most difficult assignment I’ve ever undertaken” were Alan Ward’s words when he showed me the finished Angel. Alan and his partner Chris have been working flat out since they arrived at Huis Ten Bosch, but it wasn’t simply the amount of work which made this job hard- the difficulty arose from the fact that Alan usually works with stone, but this time he had to use plaster. 

This involved making a framework from bamboo, covering the frame in chicken wire and then wrapping the frame in bandage. The resulting structure was then coated in the finest grade plaster, from which the carving was made. When the plaster is mixed it is ready to use when “flowers” appear on the surface- quite an appropriate image for an gardening event.
Alan and Chris have done a magnificent job- as this photo shows. The statue certainly has the “Wow” factor and I can only hope that the rest of the garden will do it justice.