November 2021
AVS Lewes - Driftwood Garden
When our Lewes branch received an order for a large number of reclaimed railway sleepers earlier this year, it didn't raise any eyebrows as AVS is one of the largest sleeper retailers in the UK, and we regularly sell large numbers of this garden landscaping favourite.
However the customer, Geoff Stonebanks of nearby Seaford in East Sussex, recently got in touch with the results of his handiwork. It turns out that Geoff is the creator of the award winning Driftwood Garden, a local garden and tourist attraction that opens to the public during the summer months to raise money for charity. Indeed, Geoff has raised a staggering £152,457 for various charities since he started opening his garden to the public, including £98,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.
The garden has even received a TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Award and has been featured on BBC Gardener's World.
Geoff explained to us that the reclaimed sleepers had been used to build a new area of the garden, once the garden had closed after the 2021 open season. The Sunken Garden features walls built from vertical sleepers around a beautiful paved area, and will eventually be planted up with Mediterranean drought tolerant plants, shrubs and a collection of succulents.
We were so impressed by Geoff's landscaping skills, and his phenomenal work for charity to date, that we have given him a substantial amount of landscaping materials towards a future garden project, from our Community Outreach Fund. Hopefully our big blue AVS truck will be back at Driftwood Garden soon.
Driftwood Garden reopens to the public in June 2022, visit Geoff's website here for more information.