A LANDSCAPE gardener reached for the stars and scooped a top prize at a prestigious flower show.

Peter Gregory, formerly of Windsor Road, Great Harwood, won a gold medal at the RHS Flower Show at Tatton, Cheshire, with a space-themed garden.

And Peter, 37, who works at Bezza Nurseries, Samlesbury, near where he now lives, said it was "fantastic" to win.

He said: "It was an achievement just to get a place at the show and amazing to get a gold medal."

The garden, named "Spaced Out - A garden of observation and discovery", celebrated the 50th anniversary of space exploration.

It featured a bright pink circular design made from a specialised Perspex called edge-lip flexi-glass that absorbs sunlight at the top and emits it at the edges, giving a bright light. This was used to represent the orbit of Russian satellite Sputnik, positioned above an "observation area" and garden.

It is 50 years since Russia launched Sput-nik, the first artificial satellite to be sent into space.

Peter said the holes in the flexi-glass are to interact with sunlight to create a "star show" on the granite-paved observation area.

Four antennae extend out-wards, protruding over the garden and linking the inner and outer spaces.

Planting is then divided into three sections - the Earth, its atmosphere and space.

The Earth is shown as grass laid as a lawn, surrounded by the atmosphere which aims to look like clouds. Peter used flowers including Agrostis nebulosa, known as Cloud grass, and trifolium clovers.

To illustrate outer space Peter used small evergreen box trees before blending the turf blends into the field grass of Tatton Park, emphas-ising the vastness of space beyond.

The garden was designed by Ann Picot, Pasquale Pascucci and constructed entirely by Peter.

He said: "I had done a garden for Pasquale a few years ago at Tatton and contacted me with the idea for a garden based on space."

It is the third time he has entered the show, gaining first a bronze and a silver last year.

He says he stumbled into gardening "by complete accident" when friend and professional gardener John Everest needed help.

Peter is self-taught, gaining knowledge from reference books at home.

He said: "I was disillusioned with my previous job. I have learned as I have gone along, because obviously you need to know about plants, where to place them and why, as well as answer customers' queries and have the technical knowledge."