A former dietician who quit his job to open his own plant store in Newcastle's Fenwick has won gold at the Chelsea Flower Show.
David Morely, who runs the popular The Plant Workshop, has put the North East on the map after winning the top prize for his display at the world-famous event.
The 39-year-old, who only launched his business with husband Steve Vernon, 43, at the start of the pandemic, impressed judges and spectators when he transformed his exhibition space into a stunning home office filled with house plants.
READ MORE: Meet man who swapped life as NHS dietician to open Fenwick plant shop set for Chelsea Flower Show
Despite only receiving two weeks' notice to pull together his display as part of the show's House Plant Studies category, David and his team managed to create a haven featuring 50 'easy-care' house plants including snake plants, Hoya plants and Aglaonema.
David, from Stockton, was delighted to receive the gold award, calling it an "amazing" experience.
"The Chelsea Flower Show is like another world," he said.
"It was an amazing experience and we are just so absolutely thrilled to win. Someone dropped out, so the RHS rang us and said, 'Would you like to exhibit?' Of course, we said yes!
"We had two weeks to pull the entire exhibit together when everyone else had eight or nine months.
"So we had two weeks to win gold at Chelsea, it's crazy! We didn't expect that we could come out with gold.
"Judges said the display was really relatable and they loved that it was incredibly relatable by having a home office space with a small break-out area."
And the award shows just how far David has come since he called time on his job as an NHS dietician to open up his own house plant store in Northallerton just before the first lockdown in 2020. After turning to online orders, his business quickly took off, and since then David has opened two more stores in Newcastle's Fenwick and Billingham
David hoped his Chelsea Flower Show display would inspire people to have house plants in their home offices to create a "nurturing, productive and stress-reducing environment". And since his win last week, he's seen sales boom as people look to get their hands on his gold-standard plants.
People can even buy a "piece of Chelsea" as The Plant Workshop sells some of the plants that featured in the show at their Newcastle and Billingham stores this week.
David, who will now display his winning plaque in store, said: "We didn't expect that we could come out with gold. It was something that we worked really hard on to really show what we can do as a North East business.
"It is incredible. It is an amazing award for us and the rest of the North East."
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