2025 Green Flag Award Employee of the Year Award
We are delighted to announce that Garry Wilson, a dedicated gardener at the Green Flag Award-winning site, The Helix, home of The Kelpies, is the recipient of the Green Flag Award Best of the Best UK 'Employee of the Year' award!
Garry’s journey at The Helix began nearly ten years ago as a cleaner and seasonal gardener, but his progression to a full-time gardener role has revealed a truly unique and valuable talent: blending hands-on park maintenance with inspired fine art and problem-solving.
More than a gardener: The park's creative force
Garry and the gardening team at The Helix expertly manage the park's dynamic landscape—from cutting grass and maintaining wildflower meadows in summer, to clearing snow and planting new woodland in winter. They constantly adapt to the park’s evolution as visitor numbers and infrastructure needs grow.
What sets Garry apart is his ability to use his knowledge and education in fine art to provide visionary, practical solutions for the park. He doesn't just manage the landscape; he sees it as a blank canvas. His ability to visualise and present project ideas in a realistic medium helps the management team embrace and fund projects, and his proven track record of bringing these visions to reality inspires the entire team.
Upcycling essential requirements into art installations
Garry's projects demonstrate how creativity can solve essential park needs—like health and safety requirements or habitat creation—while simultaneously adding immense aesthetic and interpretive value for the park’s one million annual visitors. He is a master of using natural and leftover materials, inspired by artists like Andy Goldsworthy, keeping costs minimal and achieving the park's Green Tourism Gold award goal by upcycling.
Here are examples of the projects Garry has championed:
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Barn owl (Tyto Alba): Instead of chipping a glut of timber from woodland thinning, Garry used the logs to create a stunning, large-scale wood pile that depicts an owl in flight. This serves as both a compelling art installation and a crucial bug habitat, supporting the local ecosystem.
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Aesthetically pleasing fencing: Garry used high-quality oak timber (felled due to road improvements) for fencing posts instead of standard treated wood. The posts were strung with metal rods, resulting in an aesthetically pleasing fence that seamlessly fulfilled necessary health and safety requirements.
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Living dead hedge: Garry used oak posts and filled them with smaller felled wood to replace an existing utilitarian fence. This created an instant habitat and a frame for growing climbing plants like ivy and honeysuckle, establishing an exemplary dead hedge.
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Stone hedge and compass cairn: Garry ingeniously repurposed sandstone cleared from an old farmhouse. The smaller pieces were used at park gaps to prevent vehicle parking on verges in a subtle yet effective way. His love for dry-stone walling saw him use more of the stone to create a 2-meter-high Compass Cairn, complete with quartz compass points, which adds a fantastic talking point and mythology for visitors.
Benefits for visitors, wildlife and the team
Garry’s work delivers profound benefits across The Helix:
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Visitor experience: His installations provide unique focal points and photo opportunities and create moments for visitors to pause and ponder.
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Biodiversity and education: By showcasing what can be achieved with leftover materials, his projects educate visitors on creating wildlife habitats in their own gardens and provide opportunities to interpret and explain the benefits to biodiversity.
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Team inspiration: Garry’s success proves that the park can achieve high-quality, creative projects in-house, providing inspiration, motivation, and belief to his own team and the wider organisation.
Garry Wilson’s artistry and dedication have not only maintained but actively enhanced the Green Flag Award-winning site of The Helix, creating lasting assets that benefit both the one million visitors and the wildlife they share the park with. Congratulations to Garry on this well-deserved award!
