A GREEN-FINGERED designer is hoping for success at one of Europe's premier flower shows.

Paul Hensey, 37, from Clitheroe, is hoping to wow judges at this year's Royal Horticultural Society's Flower Show, at Tatton Park, near Knutsford.

He already had a fine art career when he decided to taking up part-time studies with the UK's biggest school of garden design.

But competing at the Tatton show was the last thing that he expected to achieve.

After submitting his first diploma projects to tutors at the Pickard School of Design, he was offered a place on the college's 2004 Tatton competition design team.

Paul, said: "Our entry celebrates the 200 years since the RHS was founded and the great plant collectors who have scoured the globe looking for new blooms."

The design is modelled on a small terraced house garden and represents a timepiece.

The hours are marked out with etchings in glass of some of the great flower collectors. The plants in the garden are those brought back from places as far away as China and Latin America by the collectors, while the hour hand is a revolving canopy that gives shade to visitors relaxing at the garden table.

Paul, added: "It has been a wonderful new experience. I just hope the judges at Tatton like our work."

Deborah Barnish from Pickards said: "Paul and the team have astonished us with their imagination and the excellence of their work."

After Tatton the team hope to have success at the prestigious Southport Flower Show in August.