“Urban Prairie Garden,” an award-winning garden from last year's Cincinnati Flower Show, will be exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show in England May 22-25. It is the first U.S. exhibit at the famed British flower show in more than 70 years.

        Warren Klink, owner of Urban Thickets Landscapes of Hamilton, was approved for the show last summer after meeting with Chelsea officials in London. Mr. Klink's participation was supported by the Cincinnati Horticultural Society, producers of the Cincinnati Flower Show. The local show is endorsed by England's Royal Horticultural Society.

        Mr. Klink's natural prairie garden reflects the 1 million-acre prairie which, a little more than 100 years ago, linked the Appalachians with the Rockies. The garden's concept was inspired by a trip Mr. Klink made to Telluride, Colo. He envisioned a bear on the edge of a prairie, bordered by a forest canopy of “Princeton” elms.

        The bear in Mr. Klink's garden was a 5-foot-tall, 3,500-pound bear carved by stone sculptor John Kessler of Cripple Creek, Colo.

        Besides another stone bear, Mr. Klink's Chelsea garden will feature masses of unmowed native little bluestem prairie grasses, exotic-looking native switchgrass and a patch of buffalo grass from Texas. The grasses will surround a stream bed dividing forest and prairie.

        Assisting Mr. Klink in England will be Knoll Gardens and Nursery of Wimborne, Dorset.

        Mr. Klink's Urban Thickets will have a smaller exhibit in the Cincinnati Flower Show, April 25-29 at Ault Park in Mount Lookout.

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