01/07/12 The Night Before Judging [from the archives]

Linda and I met at the Tommy Wass planters at 9am Sunday morning to try and deadhead the petunias - it had to be early as the judges will see most of them from the road side and we needed to start before the traffic got heavy. Most cars and, to my surprise, buses left us extra room [I was wearing my hi-viz jacket] but the nearest to collision I came was with a cyclist [who you would expect to be more thoughful].

I didn't get any photos I'm afraid as I then had to dash off to see my Nan who's 95th birthday it was.

I collected Linda again at 6pm and we went to the Watsonia Pavilion to start setting up the display boards for tomorrow. After that we had a quick look round the Millenium Garden

Blogger was playing up yesterday when I was trying to add a photo of the new fern, so it is now the day after judging, but as I forgot to take any photos of that I will continue with this post. The borders and beds were looking good.

This is the new fern [blogger is playing nicely today!]also looking good.

Anyway judging seemed to go ok, the rain started as the judges arrived for lunch but stopped just after we left to start on the route. There had been quite a lot of rubbish on Gypsy Lane when Linda & I checked on Sunday night so after dropping Linda at Coburn and Adam at the Chelsea Garden, Susan and I went back and did a quick litter pick - talk about last minute, I was just putting my bag of rubbish in the boot of my car when the mini bus drove past and Susan had to hide round a corner.

The rain held off until everyone got back to the Watsonia for afternoon tea, so that was pretty good timing and the judges seemed quite happy - although you can't really tell so we'll have to wait until we get the results.

There was some debate over when the next meeting should be - there might be one in August but we're not sure yet. I think we deserve a breather after the last two weeks but we might be recovered by the 6th.

Sara