Nairn's horticultural year reached its peak last weekend with the Club's Annual Flower Show at the Community & Arts Centre.

Local garden enthusiasts and allotment holders filled the show benches with a colourful array of flowers, fruit and vegetables. Other benches carried more creative offerings: photographs, floral arrangments, baking, preserves and craftwork. All of this provided a splendid spectacle for the members of the public who came to look round and enjoy a delicious tea with home-baking.

The total entry was up by 20% from the previous year with over a hundred entries, and it was good to see many more young gardeners taking part.

In a show usually dominated by the container plants & cut flowers this year's top prize for Best Exhibit in Show went to three magnificent onions grown by Mrs Kate Fraser, a relative newcomer to showing.

What is Kate's secret? " You've got to start off with good seed," she said, "another essential ingredient is plenty of dung. The onions were planted last December in a greenhouse and later moved to a polytunnel."

Gilly Allingham of the Really Garlicky Company, one of the Show's sponsors, presented the prizes to the lucky winners. Other sponsors were John Gordon and Son Ltd, Moray Estates Development Company and Wild Blossom.

Nairn & District Gardening Club held their 36th Annual Show this month. Best in Show was a magnificent pot of large headed Begonias grown by George Pirie. There were also multiple awards to Kate Fraser and Donlad Cheyne.

Club Secretary, Anne Vincent, said: "A challenging growing season with extremes of weather had a limited impact on the overall number of entries this year. Our resilient gardeners still provided some exceptional exhibits for the Show benches.

Full results will appear on the website shortly.

Nairn & District Gardening Club has this year joined forces with another local voluntary horticultural group, Keeping Nairnshire Colourful (KNC), to safeguard the garden beds around the town traditionally filled with seasonal planting.

 KNC learned last summer that, as a result of budget cuts, Highland Council was going to grass over three of these beds alongside the A96 out of Nairn towards Inverness. They decided to apply for lottery funding so that they could adopt all three, turn them into perennial herbaceous beds and find three local groups to agree to plant them up and maintain them. The application was successful and when approached members of the Nairn Club agreed to adopt one.

A local garden designer offered to do a planting scheme for each bed and the two local nurseries, Greens’ Nurseries and Broadley Garden Centre said they would source and supply the plants. The money was confirmed in September and plans were made for an autumn planting. However, it soon became clear that a hard winter was forecast and so the plans were put on hold. The snow and frost finally cleared and the plants were ordered for April. Members got together for a mass plant up. Shaped like a peanut the central features of the bed are a yellow column Yew and dwarf Junipers. Surrounding these are bushes of Skimmia, red Potentilla, Hebe “Red Edge” and Sarcoccoca. Continuing the red, green, purple & yellow theme, the bed is edged with drifts of purple-leaved Heuchera, Sedums, Stipa tenuissima & Epimediums. In the autumn members will add Tulips, dwarf narcissisi and Alliums to extend the seasonal colour.

To maintain the bed, the Club has organised a rota with pairs of members checking on the plants, weeding and trimming the grass edges each month. With the warmth of April and plentiful rain this year the plants have established well and put on good growth. The Club has an exciting hands-on project for members and at the same time it is helping to ensure that visitors and residents alike can continue to enjoy colourful beds around Nairn.