TWELVE garden designs that will feature as the launch-pad of the massive Butterfly World project in St Albans have been unveiled. The gardens will be opened in June as the inaugural event for Butterfly World and will remain in situ until October. Future G

TWELVE garden designs that will feature as the launch-pad of the massive Butterfly World project in St Albans have been unveiled.

The gardens will be opened in June as the inaugural event for Butterfly World and will remain in situ until October.

Future Gardens, as the project is known, will run annually at Butterfly World, which is currently under construction in Chiswell Green.

The garden design competition attracted nearly 100 entrants from around the world from which 12 designs have been chosen to be built at Butterfly World.

They will be unveiled on June 5 and all have been designed to demonstrate that sustainability and innovative and contemporary design can co-exist and be mutually beneficial.

Creation

Among the designs is Nest, drawn up by husband and wife design team Jane Hudson and Erik De Maeijer who live in Shenley and are Chelsea Flower Show medal winners.

It is based around the creation of a place to nurture and includes coppiced willow which grows over a very short period of time and can be used as an efficient renewable energy source.

Another Chelsea gardener, Andy Sturgeon, has his Urban Greening design among the 12 Future Gardens. He said: "Future Gardens is a rare opportunity to make a statement with a garden and provides an international stage on which designers can flex their conceptual muscles. It feels like a breath of fresh air.

"Urban Greening is a response to the loss of green spaces in our cities and highlights the way that good-quality landscape design can improve the environment. Huge oxidised steel monoliths sitting among native trees represent the cityscape and its encroachment on the surrounding Green Belt and countryside."

Among the other high-profile garden designers are Tony Heywood and Bruno Marmiroli while a 13th show garden designed by Fern Alder, a three-times winner at Hampton Court Flower Show, is also being drawn up.

The Butterfly World project will see its annual Future Gardens event showcase new designs for four months every year and the creative brief for next year's competition will be released in March.

It will be open to the public until October 4 this year and reopen in 2010. The butterfly dome at the heart of the scheme - the largest in the world - is due to be installed in 2011 and its unveiling will complete the �25 million visitor attraction which will open all year round.