A GREEN-FINGERED Upton Warren woman has scooped a coveted award at a top agricultural show.

Kate Dunkley won an RHS bronze at last weekend's Malvern Autumn Show.

The radiographer and farmer's wife, whose livestock was wiped out by the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, made her debut as a garden designer.

Kate's family lost its entire flock of breeding ewes and lambs when the disease struck six years ago. She has now turned her hand to horticulture and entered the Malvern Autumn Show's new edible gardens competition.

The Worcestershire Life 21st Century Smallholding is inspired by the late 19th century plots in the rich fruit-growing and market gardening area of the Vale of Evesham. It features modern planting in traditional landscaping.

Kate worked in conjunction with her husband and business parntner, Tim.

"The impact of the foot and mouth outbreak was heartbreaking for us, particularly as my husband had to assist with the cull on site. I was working part-time as a radiographer in Birmingham at the time and went back to full-time while he considered our future.

"He remembered landscaping a garden for a friend prior to foot and mouth and how he had really enjoyed himself. So he decided on a career change and embarked on a course in hard landscaping at Pershore. I later quit healthcare and did a course in garden design, and Greenfields Landscapes was born."

Tim worked on a garden for the Chelsea Flower Show, but this was Kate's first ever display garden.

"I am really happy with my design and I have grown a lot of the plants myself, begging, borrowing and stealing all the others!"

Kate added: "I have no regrets about our decision to diversify. We have been able to stay on the farm - a much-loved family home - and we are very self-sufficient, retaining a small stock for our own use.

"Out of a devastating period came something really good and I hope our story will be of some comfort to farmers faced with uncertainties from the latest foot and mouth crisis."

Kate was featured in Worcestershire Life magazine. She was invited to design a garden which would celebrate the diversity of produce in the region and capture the very essence of country life.

Kate's garden reflected modern eating habits influenced by cuisine from around the world so crab apples grew alongside chilli peppers and basil and figs were planted with pak choi and cauliflowers.