This year’s BBC Gardener’s World Live will feature a Canal Boat Garden by award winning designer Paul Stone, celebrating the Midlands’ canal network.

The Canal & River Trust and Drifters member ABC Boat Hire will be exhibiting at the event, which takes place at the Birmingham NEC, 16-19 June 2016.

Visitors to the Canal & River Trust stand (G522, Hall 6) can enter our competition to win a £500 Drifters canal boat holiday voucher.

Mike Grimes, head of boating at the Canal & River Trust, explains: “We are delighted to be working with BBC Gardener’s World Live to help create a fantastic Canal Boat Garden feature for the event.

“The Canal Boat Garden will include a lock side scene complete with a full size narrow boat donated by ABC Boat Hire as well as some old lock gates from the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal.”

Surrounded by planting typical of the ecosystems found alongside canals, the Canal Boat Garden display will also include a Lock Keeper’s cultivated Garden and a “moving roof garden” on the narrow boat itself, to give inspiration to those wanting to grow flowers and edibles in tight space.

The Canal Boat Garden also has a focus on invasive plant species, which cost the Canal & River Trust thousands of pounds a year to clear, can be a real frustration for boaters and are damaging to native wildlife.

Paul Stone is a veteran garden designer and Gold Medal winner having exhibited at RHS Chelsea Flower Show amongst many others. Veolia are supporting the Canal Boat Garden by donating Pro-Grow products.

The Show is open 9am till 6pm daily, 16-19 June 2016. Tickets include free entry to the BBC Good Food Show.