Guildford in Bloom 2023 winners announced

November 10, 2023| News + Events, Past Issues

Mayor Masuk Miah (centre), MP Angela Richardson (right), the Guildford in Bloom team and all the winners of the 2023 Guildford in Bloom competition.

The Winners of the 2023 Guildford in Bloom Competition have been celebrated at an Awards evening at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and hosted by BBC Surrey’s Joe Talbot.

Recently saved for the future by generous crowdfunding donations, Guildford in Bloom held its annual awards on Tuesday to celebrate gardens and allotments across the borough.

Overall entry quality, especially for wildlife gardens has improved considerably this year with every Wildlife Garden entered achieving gold standard – creating wildlife havens across the area. In fact the wildlife gardens were so good – Rosamund Community Garden and Watts Gallery share the prize.

The Best in Competition winner for 2023 is Peter and Min Martin for their allotment on the Farnham Road allotment site. The Judges said: “If you want to see a plot with every inch packed full with fruit, flowers and vegetables of many varieties, look no further than this year’s winner. This was especially good to see as the season has not been the easiest and the plot is on a slope making watering more difficult. Truely a pleasure to judge.” Chairman of Guildford in Bloom, Paul Spooner said:

“As always, a lot of hard work goes into the competition and thanks must go to the Judges and committee who organise this fantastic event. We always enjoy the ‘back stories’ to each of our entries and this year’s overall winner is a result of year of work on their allotment and it shows. We were very encouraged by the number of quality wildlife gardens and those that followed our theme ‘For King and Countryside’. Also we cannot thank enough all those who generously donated to our crowdfunding campaign and ensured that this year awards is not the last.”

This year’s theme took in the coronation but endeavoured to give a nod to King Charles III’s lifelong love of nature and create wildlife haven pockets across the area to make a real difference to the decline of so many pollinators and wildlife species. More information on the work of Guildford in Bloom can be found at www.guildfordinbloom.com and on their social media channels.