While other people might use their savings to go on a flash holiday or to buy a new car, Kasia Howard used hers to follow a dream.

“It has been an ambition of mine for many years to exhibit at Hampton Court and has been worth the sacrifice,” said Kasia, 39, of Great Bourton, near Banbury.

Kasia is currently exhibiting at the Royal Holticultural Society show on the outskirts of West London, showcasing her Home Spun garden to the thousands of visitors.

She has spent more than £8,000 to self-finance the garden which features three enclosures – each made using the same metal framework but adapted and decorated in a different way.

“Friends and family have helped out, so it has been a real team effort,” said Kasia. Her partner Roger Bastow, a virtual reality engineer, created 3D models of her vision, and daughter Ghislaine, 16, watered plants and took on other tasks.

While the garden features flowers – annuals which can be cut and used in the home in greens, oranges, purples and white – it is the structures which are the focal point.

“Home Spun reflects the human desire to create an idyll, to explore creativity and individuality and make a place for ourselves in this world,” said Kasia, who had had good feedback from visitors to the show (“They think they are fun and cosy”). “Its inspiration is the nesting instinct – how humans and animals alike choose to settle in a landscape, create unique structures of infinite variability and call them ‘home’.

“The plants surround, shelter and animate the structures and are perfect for cutting and enriching the home.” With some help from Hawkins Steel, in Banbury, to fabricate the structures and materials from Oily Rag and Impact Flooring, another local firm, Kasia has created a showcase for her talents, which she hopes will lead to commissions for works. Describing herself as an artist who gardens, she said: “I would like to do more of architectural and sculptural pieces that sit within a garden.”

Her gardening skills were tested growing flowers from seed for the garden.

“I don’t have a greenhouse and with the weather we have had, I had many weeks of biting my nails and willing them on,” said Kasia, who began her career as an animator.

She discovered gardening as an antidote to the black box of the studio and computer screen; initially gardening at home, for friends and for family, then transfering her creative talents from indoor spaces to outdoor places.

After cutting her teeth on a commission to design and create a temporary dinosaur park in central London (which included life sized dinosaurs) she now works in a variety of sites across Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

“I have plenty of other ideas for future show gardens. I enjoy exploring ideas and the opportunity to present something new to the public,” said Kasia. “Being at the show and talking to people about the garden is very interesting, humbling and inspiring. I think people are more creative than they think and the best compliment is when someone tells you that you have given them an idea or inspired them to have a go at creating something themselves.”

For more information see www.kasiahowardstudio.co.uk RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show runs until Sunday July 14. For details see www.rhs.org.uk