Tallington Lodge Care Home in Tallington near Stamford hosted a garden party for residents and the local community to mark the finale of Country Court Care’s ‘In Bloom’ gardening competition this week. Local people, residents, and families enjoyed a wonderful afternoon tea and were joined by residents from St John’s Care Home and Ashwood Nursing Home in Spalding for the judging of the gardening competition.
The competition was judged by Country Court Care’s Board of Directors, together with Joel Ashton of Hazelwood Landscapes Ltd in Bourne. Joel has recently featured on BBC 2’s Gardeners World, he and his brother are known as the ‘Butterfly Brothers’ and are enjoying some celebrity status at the moment. Sue Lee and Kitty Beck from Stamford Horticultural Society also lent their gardening expertise to the judging panel.
There were six categories for care homes in the Country Court Care group to enter, the staff took photographs of their entries and posted them into a special Facebook group. Twenty-three care homes took part and there were over 1,200 photos entered into the competition, a selection were displayed for visitors and judges to review at the garden party.
The overall winner of CCC in Bloom 2019 was Priory Court Care and Nursing Home in Burnham-on-Sea. The judges agreed that their community project and the fact that they had entered all of the categories made them stand out. Senior Carer Julie Keep was given an ‘Outstanding Contribution’ award for her efforts in the garden and leading the garden revamp project with residents, staff and the local community.
Prizes and certificates are being sent to the winners of each category as well as a trophy for the overall winner.
“We are keen to support gardening projects locally” explained Joel Hazelwood “since appearing on Gardener’s World we’ve been working on projects and TV appearances all over the UK but it’s great to come to an event in our local area. I loved the areas for wildlife that the residents created, I thought the birdfeeders here at Tallington Lodge were great”.
“We’ve really enjoyed our afternoon,” said Sue Lee of Stamford Horticultural Society “It’s wonderful to see all the gardening projects that the residents get involved with especially in their local communities. We liked those photos that showed the residents working on their projects, we thought that was lovely”.
