Blooming Hills winners announced

9:16am Tuesday 13th May 2008

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Great Malvern came into bloom last week as 29 businesses created a host of superb floral displays, including a water feature with live fish by Forget-me-Not Florists, a recreation of Vincent Van Gogh's Sunflowers' by iapetus gallery and a floral lady by Air Hairdressing.

The Blooming Hills competition was run by the Great Malvern Association of Traders in conjunction with the Royal Horticultural Society and the Three Counties Showground. Judging of the competition was by Richard Hillier and Dougal Phillips from the RHS and Joe Swift from BBC Gardeners World.

Click the link for pictures of some of the displays.

The judging of the traders displays took place on Thursday May, 8, the first day of the Malvern Spring Gardening Show and then the judges took more than an hour to come to a decision over their winners. They commented that the variety and quality of the entries was extremely high, and it proved very difficult to make a choice.

The winning display was by Riding High Gallery on Worcester Road, which created Elgar on his bicycle with his picnic. Owner Mike Austin was delighted to have won the competition and the star prize of a 5*holiday for two to Madeira, kindly donated by Lee Harrison of Select World Travel, and his award winning tour operators, Classic Collection Holidays.

Second prize went to Air Hairdressing, for their three dimensional sculpture of a woman with fabulous hair, and third prize went to iapetus gallery for their recreation of Van Gogh's room including three of his masterpieces brought to life with live flowers.

GMAT vice-chairman Anna Brook said: "We're delighted with the high number of entries, and by the way it has got locals, visitors and the media all talking about Great Malvern. We have had lots of people visit the town centre from the Spring Gardening Show to see the displays. The town looks fabulous, and everyone who took part deserves a prize for all their effort. This event looks set to be an annual competition now, so we look forward to building on this years success in 2009. "