News & Reports - Sandringham Show

Sandringham Flower Show July 2023

From Highgrove to Sandringham

The brief for this year’s garden was “A Garden Fit for a King”. Old-timers, Mary, Jenny and Sue welcomed Rosy, Jenny (Cobby) and Ruth to our team and we unanimously decided to build a stumpery, a much- loved garden created by King Charles III at Highgrove.

After hunting for suitable unwanted tree stumps we spent many happy hours shopping at the local garden centres and nurseries for hostas, ferns, trailing ivy and moisture loving flowers, as well as plants from our own gardens.

On the Monday before the show, three cars (fully laden with all the plants, stumps and compost, plus our gardening gear) left for Sandringham. It was raining heavily when we arrived at the marquee but once we had unloaded we set to work on the garden and were amazed at how quickly it came together. We were really delighted with our miniature garden. - it looked like it had been in situ for ever.

Anticipation as to what medal we would obtain was growing – the competition this year was fierce and Grimston’s garden was looking spectacular when we eventually left on Monday. Mary and Jenny went back to refresh on the Tuesday - Snettisham had still not completed their garden, Rudhams were still working on theirs and Sandringham Cottage Gardens had also done a stumpery!! What would we obtain? We needn’t have worried - I am very pleased to report that when we returned to the marquee on the Wednesday we were delighted to receive a Gold award - with Snettisham winning Best in Show!! Well done to them – it really was beautiful. The challenge now is to win Best in Show next year and we await to see what the brief for 2024 will be.

Jenny J.