South West in Bloom Results

 Last week, four of us travelled down to Haselbury Mill, near Crewkerne to discover South Swindon Parish Bloom results. This was the third parish entry, at the first in 2019, the parish was awarded silver in the pennant class, because of Covid, there was no competition in 2020, it resumed last year, with only one judge instead of two going round judging. In 2021 we were awarded another silver in the pennant class, and so this year, tension was mounting, had we achieved a higher award this year? The categories Bloom is judged on are not just horticultural achievement, but also environmental responsibility and community engagement with a 40%,30% and 30% split. There's a marking sheet here to look at. 

The idea behind Britain in Bloom which has been running since 1963 is to regenerate neighbourhoods by paying attention to all outside spaces and look at how they might be improved. It's a great idea and since there's quite a long time between judging and the results coming out, when you reach results day, it's very exciting, and emotional because lots of effort has gone into the entry. I took some photos of the day, but because we were sitting right at the back of the barn, there aren't that many. I'll make a start with the inside of the barn:

We were seated at tables while we heard the two speakers, Saul Walker and Mike Nelhams in the morning, had lunch and then heard the results in the afternoon. Saul talked about his time as an organiser of the building of the show gardens at Chelsea and Mike talked about the Tresco Abbey Gardens. But really, we were waiting to hear the results, and when they came, we were very pleased, we won a silver gilt in the pennant class and best in the town and city, north for which we received a cup.

Here we are with the cup, and below the certificate for silver gilt:

I made an attempt to photograph everyone waiting to receive the awards:

Trish Philpot in front, with Judith Randall-Sly behind and Martin Hambidge next to her.

We were very pleased to have moved up a category and are growing for gold next year!

I was sitting next to a group of people from Hayle in Bloom and very excited to discover one of their party, Nigel Powell received Community Champion which was a great honour.

We received our It's Your Neighbourhood awards and feedback on the gardens managed by volunteers via envelopes and after the ceremony, chatted to our judges, Martin Davis and Ian Murphy about how we could improve our entries for next year. I have worked particularly with OTRA Gardeners and Cambria Bridge Community gardens which have made tremendous progress this year.