Awards For Guildford In Bloom Entrants Who Made Their Gardens ‘Zing’

Published on: 22 Sep, 2016
Updated on: 22 Sep, 2016

Guildford’s green-fingered community celebrated the Guildford in Bloom awards, as they were presented with their gardening prizes.

Best large front garden award was won by David Jobson of Kestrel Close in Merrow.

This year 160 entrants took part in 10 categories, from small container gardens and allotments, to neighbourhood projects and innovation in horticulture, wildlife gardens and pubs in bloom.

Best themed garden award was won by HMP Prison, Send.

The awards ceremony took place at Burchatt’s Farm Barn at Stoke Park on Wednesday last week (September 14) with more than 250 attendees, including local school children.

Lisa Keech from Albury won best front garden for the second year running. She said: “The garden was entered by someone else last year, which was a total shock, so I entered myself this year and was stunned when it won again.”

Her garden is a typical cottage garden and the backdrop is an old cottage that has wisteria growing on it that is about 160 years old. This year’s planting included some bold colours – hot pink, purple, lime green, orange and white. Lisa said these were all tradironal cottage garden plants but the colours really “made it zing”.

It also featured lots of terracotta pots and planters. For this autumn and winter she is planting it with just four types of plants with each of them being very scented. The garden has taken about eight years of dedicated hard work, although Lisa said: “The work is never finished, you are always moving forward.

“I do the garden as much for everybody else as myself. It brings a lot of joy and happiness. People stop to look as they walk by or even in their cars if they are waiting in the traffic.”

She also helps to plant up the troughs with bedding that can also be seen in Albury.

The Normandy Therapy Garden won gold in the neighbourhood project section and also best in that section.

As well as the team of horticulturalists who work there, there are some 30 volunteers who help to make it such a special place. Their hard work certainly contributed to its awards.

Waitrose also sent 80 members of its staff who gave their time freely to help in the garden.

The Normandy Therapy Garden is a charity set up in 1998 to create an attractive and supportive environment for some of the most vulnerable members of the local community. It specifically supports teenagers referred by special and mainstream schools in Surrey and Hampshire, and adults who are referred by social services and community mental health teams.

New to the garden this year is a shop that sells produce from the garden as well as plants. It has been well supprted by the community. The centre manager is Sally Mills.

Cllr Richard Billington, lead councillor for rural economy, countryside, parks and leisure said: “Guildford in Bloom really brings the local community together to help make the most of the great borough we live in. It’s wonderful to see so many more entries than ever this year, especially from local allotment holders.”

Best pub garden award was won by the restaurant Gomshall Mill.

In total 158 prizes were awarded; 40 gardeners picked up the top gold award.

The leader of Guildford Borough Council, Paul Spooner, and chairman of Guildford in Bloom, added: “We’d like to thank everyone who worked hard on their entries and entered a fantastic range of gardens, allotments and schools for this year’s competition. The committee would also like to thank the council’s parks and leisure team for their hard work in supporting this excellent annual event.”

The Best in Category award winners were: