Plane wreck used as centrepiece of RHS Hampton Court Palace exhibition

Former easyJet pilot uses 48ft-long passenger plane wreckage as the centrepiece of RHS Hampton Court Palace exhibition in a bid to make visitors ‘realise the climate change threat posed by air travel’

• The Extinction Garden at Hampton Court Palace features a 48ft long plane wreck
• Designer Felicity O’Rourke, 45, created it to address the sixth mass extinction
• Royal Horticultural Society Show to return after year on hiatus due to lockdown  

A former pilot has taken her garden to new heights, installing the wreck of a passenger plane as the centrepiece of her display at the Royal Horticultural Society Show. 

Designer Felicity O’Rourke created the piece for the society’s first show since lockdown in Hampton Court Palace, and it comes complete with a 48 ft long crashed jet with suitcases and other items scattered alongside it.  

It is surrounded by police crime scene tape, and the 45-year-old designer has even gone to the effort of putting charcoal on the ground to depict burning. 

The Extinction Garden addresses the sixth mass extinction event 

The former easyJet pilot hopes the installation, called the Extinction Garden, will shock visitors into realising the threat of mass extinction created by mankind itself. 

She has denied that her creation is linked to activists Extinction Rebellion, a global environmental group. 

‘It is shocking to make people look at a plane crash,’ she told the Sunday Telegraph. ‘But I want them to feel grief, loss, anger and humility and to realise our thirst for air travel has contributed to climate change and the pandemic. 

The garden, designed by Felicity O’Rourke, uses the wreck of a plane as the centrepiece 

‘There have been five mass extinctions and we are now facing a sixth so we must take action to tackle climate change.’ 

Other highlights at the show this year include a garden designed by Mike Long to promote people reconnecting after lockdown, using upcycled and repurposed materials to show that a lot can be achieved with very litter. 

Global impact is also explored in the Canal and River Trust’s Message in a Bottle garden which uses a giant metal bottle to house a beautiful garden inside, in a bid to promote recycling. 

Last year, the famed Chelsea flower show was cancelled for the first time since World War Two, going online only instead as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. 

It is surrounded by police crime scene tape, and the designer has even gone to the effort of putting charcoal on the ground to depict burning.

Other cancelled shows included the RHS Malvern Spring Festival 2020, the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, RHS Hyde Hall and RHS Rosemoor. 

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