There was a colourful array of offerings at this Saturday’s County Blooms garden show.

The show, presented annually by the Prince Edward County Horticultural Society, featured a flower show, Victorian tea, plant sale, kids activities, vendors, and a silent auction. With a prime location at Wellington Town Hall and plenty of people making their way between the show and the Wellington Farmers’ Market, there was a steady stream of foot traffic throughout the day.

Horticultural society president Lise Bois said County Blooms has a real community feel to it and being there at the same time as the Wellington Farmers’ Market seems to work well for everyone. Overall it was another good show.

“It went beautifully,” she said.

While the attendance was good throughout the day, Bois suspected the beautiful weather had many potential patrons out enjoying the local beaches.

“It was a gorgeous day for that,” she said. “We might have had a few more people had the weather been a little cooler, but nonetheless it was great,” she said.

Bois said the flower show and plant sales are popular with visitors. Kids activities went well and a new book sale was also introduced.

The funds raised through County Blooms support the horticultural society’s activities in the community, helping to spruce up local public gardens and backing other initiatives.

“We have helped out the Picton library, we’ve given some money to the Wellington museum, we conduct monthly meetings and we bring in speakers on various speakers,” Bois said. “We volunteer at the Picton hospital maintaining their gardens.”

Bois said the society looks forward to presenting the show again next year.

There was a good range of exhibits at the horticultural society’s annual juried flower show and attendance throughout the day was steady.

Flower show co-chairs Sandra Dowds and Patricia Stuckey said they were happy with how it all came together.

“It went very well, we’ve got lots of people coming in and seeing the flowers,” said Dowds. “We had about 10 people exhibiting and winning ribbons.”

While in the past the show was hosted at Picton’s Crystal Palace, for the last two years it’s called Wellington Town Hall Home. Dowds said there are advantages to the move.

“They’ve got the market on the other side, so all of those people when they’re enjoying the market they walk across the street and it’s ‘oh, what’s to do here’ so it’s a great place,” she said.

She said there were many visitors who came away impressed by all the different varieties of flowers.

“There are all these gorgeous peonies this spring of different colours — yellow, orange — it makes them think maybe next year they could enter something,” she said.
Stuckey said it was a good year for variety.

“Some years we don’t have roses, they’re not open yet, or other years there will be all kinds of irises,” she said. “This is a really nice all-around good show.”

The winners of the flower show were: Best in show–design, Kathy Bondy; best in show–iris, Judith Young; best in show–peony, Sandra Dowds; best in show–rose, Carol Wilson; best horticultural exhibit, Sheila Simmons; best vegetable/herb, Lise Bois.