A gardeners’ dream
The Arran Community Theatre in Lamlash was transferred into a gardeners’ dream last Wednesday with flowering blooms and prize vegetables forming an impressive display making up the Arran Horticultural Society Summer Show.
Spread out across a sea of green tables, there were a healthy number of entries in each of the 10 categories, ranging from cut flowers, pot plants, decorative arrangements to vegetables.
Spilling out into the cafeteria area, categories ranged even further from baking, home produce, to knitting and photography. This area also housed the most entered category – the children’s section – which encompassed everything from flower arrangements to drawing, handcraft and miniature garden creation. With nominal prize money for the first, second and third place winners, each of the 21 classes received numerous inventive and remarkably diverse entries.
A cut above the rest, prolific golfer and gardener John O’Sullivan once again dominated the vegetable category with numerous first, second and third place winners, earning himself the Orr Watt Cup for most points in section and his most desired trophy, the Eric Gregory Cup, named after his long-time competitor and well-respected friend.
Society president John Sillars said: ‘Thank you once again to all of the contributors and visitors at this year’s summer show. The Beast from the East, weather conditions and latterly the extended period of hot weather has seen a drop in the number of cut flower entries this year but it has boosted the pot plant sections. The children’s category continues to receive a huge amount of entries and, despite the challenging weather, the quantity and quality across all categories has remained consistently high.’
Following the show a prize-giving ceremony was held with more than 15 trophies awarded to winning exhibitors for best exhibits and category winners.
The Arran Horticultural Society hosts two shows every year, the summer show at the Community Theatre in Lamlash and the spring show in Brodick Hall, both highly anticipated and firm fixtures in the diaries of gardeners, bakers and children looking to boost their finances.