THINK of painting and thoughts naturally turn to brushes, rollers or pads. They don’t normally involve flowers.

After all, dipping a rose stem into a pot of emulsion is asking for trouble. But now garden designers are being invited to recreate their favourite paintings or portraits as floral works of art.

Celebrated designer and broadcaster Chris Beardshaw and the Malvern Spring Gardening Show are looking for budding plant Picassos to show off their skills for an exciting new feature for 2012 – the Painting with Plants Gallery.

Three of the best planting displays will win £1,000 for their nominated charity, local group, school or good cause.

The four-day gardening show takes place at the Three Counties Showground from May 10 to 13 and Chris and the Malvern team are currently looking for plant lovers who would like to take part and create a flower bed planting scheme, which creatively represents either a painting (famous or not), photograph, landscape or view.

Ten displays will be selected to appear at the show and three of these will be chosen during the event to win the £1,000.

Chris hopes the new Painting with Plants Gallery will help create a stronger link between the show and local communities.

He said: “Malvern Spring Gardening Show heralds the start of the season and is a show which is an integral part of the local community and landscape.

“As gardeners, we are always looking at ways to creatively express our love of plants and we naturally want to help each other out so we thought we could combine the two with this new feature for 2012, which will enable people to display their artistic planting skills and also win funds for their chosen charity or good cause.”

The feature is open to anyone who wants to take part as the displays will be kept small and will only be created using plant materials.

Ten ‘blank canvas’ flower beds will be prepared by the show organisers ready for the selected artists to plant up with their design.

When the show opens, the public will be able to walk around the gallery, which will be located in the main show garden arena.

Anyone interested in taking part in this new feature at Malvern Spring Gardening Show, or would like to find out more about the Planting with Plants Gallery can call Nina Acton on 01684 584919.