At the Chelsea Flower Show, the world's largest garden fair hosted by the Royal Horticultural Society, Korean garden designer Hwang Ji-hae (47) won the gold award, the highest award.

On the 23rd local time, the Chelsea Flower Show announced on its official website, "Artist Hwang Ji-hae has been selected for the Gold Award in the Show Garden category for his Jirisan-inspired garden 'Letters from a Million Years Ago'."

The Chelsea Flower Show, a tradition that has been around since 1913, is a world-class garden and horticultural fair where you can see newly developed flowers, gardens and related products in one place, and is known as the "dream stage" for garden artists.



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"Letter from a Million Years Ago" is a garden designed with the motif of a Jirisan medicinal herb colony, and recreates a primitive natural landscape with more than 300 species of native plants and rocks to convey the message of "symbiosis between nature and humans."

Hwang Ji-hae's submission is the only one of the 12 nominees to be set overseas, and it was unusually noticed by the King of the United Kingdom.

At that time, King Charles III visited Hwang's garden and listened to the explanation of the work for about 3 minutes, admiring it by saying "wonderful" while watching it, and when Hwang was impressed by this, he replied, "Of course," and hugged him with a smile, which became a hot topic.



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Returning to the Chelsea Flower Show after 11 years, artist Hwang Ji-hae won the gold award for her entry this year, reaching the top three times in total.

He proved his skills in 3 when he won both the gold and top prizes in the Artiz Garden category for his first appearance, "The Road to the Manatee." Both awards were unanimous decisions of the jury.

The following year, in 2011, he received both the Best Overall Award (President's Award) and the Gold Award in the Show Garden category for "Silent Time: DMZ Forbidden Garden", which garnered great attention both at home and abroad.



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In an interview after receiving the award, artist Hwang Ji-hae said, "Ten years ago, I didn't know about Korean gardens in the UK," adding, "I expect Korean gardens to firmly establish themselves by winning 'Haewooso' and 'DMZ' and even 'Jirisan.'"

(Photo = RHS - Royal Horticultural Society official website, Facebook, Yonhap News)