Wick church gardeners are blooming delighted to be competition winners – voted Best Community Garden by major UK flower producer
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Volunteers who transformed an unsightly morass of shrubs and weeds outside a Wick church won a major accolade from a well-established British gardening company.
The team worked on the overgrown gardens at the front of St Fergus Church over the lockdown period and have now been voted as one of the three competition winners for Best Community Garden by J Parker Dutch Bulbs (Wholesale) Ltd.
Posting the results on social media, J Parker's wrote: "We would like to thank everybody that took part and all of the amazing gardeners doing their bit for their local communities." The family-owned company said it chose the winners based on how well each project benefited "local communities and environments" and also on the originality of the idea and "anything that sets it apart from other entrants".
Garden volunteer and church member Mary Banks said: "We started at the beginning of the first lockdown and we've worked continuously for two years.
"We had to take five skip-loads away with shrubs. It was hard work but we got there. Callum Miller gave us the skips for nothing as we couldn't have afforded it."
The former unkempt garden area now has daffodils, various colours of roses, and numerous other blooms such as a range of pansies. Mary said that there are flowers to suit the different seasons with spring flowers now emerging.
Pamela Macadie entered the garden into the competition which she had seen advertised on Facebook. "I sent them photographs of before and after and had to send them a 250-word description of what we started with until what we have now," she said.
Volunteer gardener and church member Iain Banks said the team also cleared away shrubs and weeds around the perimeter of the church and around some of the graves. "Highland Council took down some trees that were in danger of collapsing last year," he added.
On its Facebook page, St Fergus Church posted this message about the win: "This triumph is all because of the hard work of Leslie Macadie, Pamela Macadie, Iain and Mary Banks creating and maintaining a beautiful garden at Wick St Fergus Church. Feel free to visit, sit on the bench provided, and soak up the ambience. Well done to those volunteers. It’s much appreciated."
The garden volunteers say they are delighted to be voted as one of the three UK winners of the competition and say that they have a five-year plan for further work at the site.
As prize winners, the team will receive £100 worth of bulbs from J Parker's so expect more beautiful blooms to be popping up around the iconic Wick church soon.
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