Our RHS Gold Medal Journey

An RHS Gold Medal is one of the highest honours in horticulture. Our students won one. Here's the story of The Living Larder — and why the journey mattered even more than the medal. ## Starting with a blank page It began, as the best projects do, with an ambitious idea and no clear path to it. Students had to design a display from scratch — balancing creativity, horticulture and the exacting standards of RHS judging. ## Months of growing A show display is the tip of an iceberg. Beneath it sat months of patient growing: raising plants to peak condition, timed precisely to look their best on judging day. Students learned that excellence is mostly preparation. ## Building it for real - Translating designs into a physical build - Solving the problems that only appear once you start - Working as a team under real deadlines - Holding their nerve when things went wrong ## The medal — and what it really represents When the Gold Medal was announced, it was the proof of everything the students had poured in. But the lasting wins were the ones you can't pin to a board: the confidence, resilience and pride that come from achieving something genuinely hard. > The medal goes on the wall. The skills go with them for life. The Living Larder is exactly the kind of experience Go to Grow exists to share. See it in our gallery, or read about our wider impact.