Watch: What made Ollie Pike create a garden from a psalm

Childhood summer holidays for Ollie Pike meant visiting his grandparents in Somerset. Their rural home is set next to a church, and young Ollie spent lots of time exploring the peaceful churchyard and helping his grandmother arrange flowers in the church. 

‘It’s a really special place to me,’ he said on a recent return to the village. ‘I wanted to capture the feeling of this place in the garden.’

During the pandemic, it was again a churchyard that offered Ollie solace. His local churchyard in Sheffield was the only green space that Ollie could visit in the one-hour exercise period allowed each day. It was, he said, a place of ‘escape’. 

Attending a family funeral, he heard Psalm 27 read, and was struck by its hopeful message. These three things woven together have helped form the Psalm 27 Garden, which will be unveiled at the Young Designer of the Year competition at RHS Flower Show Tatton Park in July. 

Psalm 27 Garden home