Southport Flower show 2018 – awarded a LARGE GOLD medal
The theme was ‘Once Upon a Time’
“Once upon a time.” Where do we start? The theme lends itself to a fairy tale but which one, Jack & the Beanstalk, Sleeping Beauty? In the end we decided on Little Red Riding Hood. Besides plants, of course what will we need? A cottage, Red Riding Hood, the Wolf and a story teller.
The cottage we already had; Irene & Margaret felt they could conjure up figures of the Wolf and Red Riding Hood. George again came up trumps by supplying a wizard to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
Plants were a concern. Ideally we would have liked to have a preponderance of red flowers to tie in with the subject. However, difficulties caused by the cold spring and exacerbated by the recent hot dry weather made sourcing a sufficient quantity and variety of red flowers impossible. Therefore we settled for a range of bright colours in keeping with the fairy tale feel and also keeping to the spirit of cottage gardens. Once again the path was designed by the past master and path master Geoff. He has been able to produce paths using a variety of different materials for each of our past Southport gardens.
Once the hard landscaping was installed the time-consuming arranging of plants was meticulously carried out by Mary and Sandie, assisted by Tina, George, Geoff, Keith and Peter also assisted where possible. Last minute jobs included final tweaking of the plants, labelling of the plants, erection of the display boards and arrangement of recruitment material on the tables.
Was it worth it? The judges certainly thought so; they awarded us a LARGE GOLD MEDAL. Also, very pleasing was the large number of favourable comments from visitors.
Peter Wiseman – Lancashire and NW Cottage Garden Society Group