Sowing the seeds for Chesterfield in Bloom

This year they are introducing categories for council house tenants and judges will be selecting best garden, best hanging basket and estate champion.
Shirley Niblock, a member of the volunteers’ steering committee, said: “Chesterfield Borough Council’s housing people said it would be a good idea if we could have a tenants section. The rangers are going to look at gardens and suggest to the tenants that they enter.”
Another new initiative is a wheelbarrow competition for secondary schools. Students will be invited to paint a wheelbarrow, fill it with plants and create papier mache figures taking the Harry Potter books as their inspiration.
Younger schoolchildren will enter a painting competition on the theme of poppies to commemorate the centenary of the end of the Second World War.

Last year, Chesterfield in Bloom attracted 127 entries from residents, allotment-holders and schools for the gardening competition and more than 1,000 schoolchildren entered the painting contest.
John Ramsey, principal green spaces strategy officer for Chesterfield Borough Council, said: “Chesterfield in Bloom is now in its 14th year and has raised the profile of the town. It’s not just about flowers; we are trying to make children aware of the environment through planting and we are highlighting the communities which are doing good environmental work.”

The event feeds the East Midlands in Bloom competition in which Chesterfield has won a gold medal for the past two years.
Tony Hedley, who is part of the Chesterfield In Bloom committee, said: “Winning gold is wonderful for tourism - it lifts us above other towns in the region. We’re very confident that we’re going to go up a gear this year to retain it.”
Tony, 67, doesn’t have a garden at his home in Hanbury Close. However, as chairman of Holme Hall Unite, he has overseen the transformation of an acre of land at Wardgate Way into a community garden carried out by volunteers with support from Marks & Spencer.
* Entry forms for Chesterfield in Bloom will be available later this month from borough council venues, garden centres and DIY outlets or can be downloaded from www.chesterfield.gov.uk/explore-chesterfield/parks-and-green-spaces/chesterfield-in-bloom. For more information, contact lynn.hind@chesterfield.gov.uk or call 01246 345 399.

New for this year are these categories specifically for council tenants - best garden, best hanging basket and estate champion (any person who takes an active interest in the estate environment can be nominated for an award).
There are ten general garden categories including. best pub, front garden, allotment site, individual allotment plot and hanging basket/container garden.
Schools can enter four categories - Fabulous Flowers, Radical Recycling, Vibrant Vegetables, Wonderful Wildlife.
Best market stall - prizes for best fruit and veg, best plant sales, best general trader and best newcomer.

Keen gardener Shirley Niblock has put her mark on Chesterfield in Bloom as a competitor and part of the organising committee.
She said: “I’ve been involved since it started. I was acting head at Hady Primary School where we had a garden. We were the first school to win the East Midlands in Bloom award.”
Shirley, 64, enjoys growing perennials such as geraniums and California poppies in her garden at Ashgate Road and last year was awarded second prize in the container garden category of Chesterfield in Bloom.
The competition serves many purposes, not least bringing the community together. Shirley said: “It involves people of all ages, from children of two or three who help to plant and watch bulbs grow to those at the opposite end of the spectrum who meet and talk to new people.
“It brings colour into Chesterfield and is encouraging people to grow not just flowers but also to cultivate vegetable gardens and allotments.”

Award-winning gardeners Sandra and Gordon Hulme have scooped nine Chesterfield in Bloom trophies with their garden at Seagrave Drive, Hasland. Sandra said: “I grow flowers, shrubs and have lots of pots and hanging baskets. Gordon does the grass.”
After they won for the third year in 2013, the couple stopped entering the competition to give others a chance of success. 
Latterly, Sandra, 70, has joined the Chesterfield in Bloom committee and now judges schools and residents’ gardens.
She said: “One lady had sold her house to her son, stripped every plant out of the garden because he wasn’t a gardener and had potted them up in her new place. The back garden was solely made up of pots - she came first in the container garden. there was no competition!”

Retired Army officer Nigel Masters is secretary of Boythorpe’s Rufford Close Allotments Association, which has won the best allotment competition for the past three years. 
He said: “We will continue to enter and support the competition as long as we’re allowed to do it.”
Rufford Close is one of 20 independently-run allotment societies in the town and Nigel represents their interests on the Chesterfield in Bloom committee.
Speaking about the membership of the committee, which was launched three years ago, Nigel said: “We’re all great gardening enthusiasts. We work very closely with the council and are having increasing influence on where the competition goes,”
His route to Chesterfield in Bloom began when his wife Denise worked at William Rhodes primary and nursery school where green-fingered pupils were bidding for prizes in the competition. Nigel, 60, of Walton, said: “It developed into a two-horse race between William Rhodes and St Mary’s primary schools. It was becoming unreasonable and unfair . . . the standard was rising all the time and the other schools couldn’t compete so they were put off.”
Ray Catt was helping out with the gardening at St Mary’s at that time. He said: “We built a complete Japanese garden which was stunning at its best. We had the children planting vegetables and in September we dug them all up and used to sell them in the schoolyard. St Mary’s won Chesterfield in Bloom six times and East Midlands in Bloom twice.”

A borough councillor and assistant cabinet member with special responsibilities for Chesterfield in Bloom, Ray serves on the volunteers’ committee and has judged and sourced sponsorship.
Part of his role is to make Chesterfield more appealing. He said: “I am passionate about the town centre being a more attractive place for people to come, especially tourists. I’m working with John Ramsey and Councillor Steve Brunt to make the floral displays in Chesterfield far better than they’ve been. I’ve already got companies and people on board and managed to get a lot of money from outside the council to expand floral displays this year.”