As last year's cup winner I was delighted to take part in judging this years Front garden Competition finalists. It meant that I could spend a little more time being nosy about what people grow in their front gardens! It certainly gives me a great deal of pleasure to see a garden where someone has taken care to make their small plot as attractive as possible. I know from talking to other people that they feel the same. Judging the 3 categories was of course very difficult: people have many different tastes in gardening as in everything else. Some of the gardens were also of different sizes & in different positions which makes comparisons more difficult. Despite that, the judges tried to be as fair as possible ( even though not everyone will agree with the results)

I hope that next year & beyond more of you will manage to bring a little more brightness into your own & other people's lives by taking a little care of your front garden. It will also make Wimbledon Park an even more pleasant place to live. Working at the front also allows those of us so inclined to have a chat with all the passers by!

Barbara Taylor

July 1997 A tale of two beginner judges

It's Friday night, we are home from work, children fed, bathed and in bed. Husband's supper on: wine in fridge. But we are late for our briefing meeting: puffing up the hill on our way to become ' garden judges '. Why did we say we would do this? Do we know our choisyas from our chrysanthemums? However, a glass of wine in the pleasant company of other voluntary judges: tick list and criteria in hand and we are off.

It's rather fun to be invited to indulge a natural nosiness in other people's front gardens. You are looking for different styles of garden - all year round interest: summer shows: use of pots and containers: use of colour. Tall hedges are out as you can't see the garden, but what wonderful hedge arches!

There are so many gardens in the area lovingly tended and cared for that we enthusiastically gave rather a lot of high scores and left the final judges with a cornucopia of various gardens from which to select the winners.
We left holes along the lines ' lovely smell ', ' nice man ', tranquil atmosphere'.

We'd had a great time but now home to open the chilled bottle in the fridge and chat about cultivating our own front gardens.

Sue March
Brenda Evans    Normanton Avenue.

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