THIS year’s Malvern Spring Festival was a resounding success, with more than 90,000 people flooding through the gates of the Three Counties Showground during the four-day event.

The event celebrates the very best in horticulture and food, with a record number of Royal Horticultural Society medals being awarded this year.

Visitors were able to enjoy 15 show gardens, over 80 nursery displays, taste treats from local and international food producers and top tips from celebrity chefs and garden experts.

Ken Nottage, chief executive of the Three Counties Agricultural Society said: “Our 30th RHS Malvern Spring Festival has been an absolute success. We’ve welcomed over 90,000 people to the Three Counties Showground, seen more RHS Gold medals awarded than ever before and enjoyed some of the finest exhibitors and celebrities that the worlds of gardening and food have to offer.

“The atmosphere has been fantastic, there’s been a real festival vibe and we’re sad that it’s all over but elated that we’re continuing to go from strength to strength. We are now firmly looking forward to the Royal Three Counties Show in June.”

Among the top names appearing at the show were chef Raymond Blanc, MasterChef’s Gregg Wallace and Otter Farm’s Mark Diacono, alongside BBC Gardeners’ World presenters Carol Klein and Joe Swift.

A garden designed by Ledbury-based Contained Gardens to provide solace for young people with mental health problems win a silver medal at the show.

The garden, named Mindfulness, was sponsored by Roger Smith in memory of his son Richard. After the show it will be permanently relocated to Malvern College, where Richard was a pupil.

Anthea Birden of Contained Gardens, said: "“It is wonderful to have won a silver medal. “The garden is designed not only to be a place where people with mental health issues and their friends and family can go, but also to raise awareness of the growing number of young people suffering from depression and other mental health problems.”

Other local winners included the Worcestershire Group of the Hardy Plant Society, which won a gold medal, and Cradley CE Primary School, which scored a distinction in the schools category with its a garden Plant'um Physics.

l See next week’s Gazette for results of the Great Malvern Floral Festival.