EVERYTHING is coming up roses for a Sale gardener after he won a nationwide garden design competition.

Lee Burkhil was one of four regional winners of the event, run by the RHS and the BBC called 'Feel Good Front Gardens', which challenged gardeners to design a front garden.

Lee, aged 33, and the other winners were invited to the Chelsea Flower Show on May 27 where they met leading garden designers Anne Marie Powell and James Alexander Sinclair.

Now Lee will represent Manchester with his garden design. He will showcase it at Hampton Court Flower show in July as part of the competition, to show how front gardens need not be paved or flagged over.

He said: "My design, entitled 'Fancy a brew? Take a pew' symbolises a return to the good old-fashioned community days where neighbours would talk over front garden walls or sit on the front step with a brew, putting the world to rights before tea time.

"I wanted to create a front garden that would help people reconnect with that sense of community rather than rushing in through the front door as soon as they return from say a busy day at work.

"I see gardening as a form of therapy in our ever busy lives. If my garden design can encourage people to do more than just block pave their front gardens, and connect with neighbours then I’ll be really happy with the success of the design."

Lee, a former Manchester University student, started a garden design blog, Garden Ninja, a year ago in order to help people get into gardening and also to showcase his garden design work. He is an IT project manager and does his garden design projects and his blog in his spare time.