Follow in Ian’s footsteps and you could be a winner in this year’s Cardwell Gardenfest competition

Gardeners from South Ayrshire could be digging for victory- if they enter a popular gardening contest.

There are prizes of £50 gift vouchers along with trophies to be won in Cardwell Garden Centre’s Gardenfest 2023 competition and local gardeners are being invited to show off their green-fingered skills.

And they would be following in the footsteps of Ian Sloan, from Prestwick (pictured above), who won the Best Planter Container trophy.

The contest is open to any customers of Cardwell Garden Centre, near Gourock from anywhere in the West of Scotland and all you have to do to enter is submit a maximum of three photographs per category being entered.

There are six categories, which are – Best Community Garden; Best Hanging Baskets; Best Planted Containers; Best Junior Gardener for Under 16s; Best Wildflower/Nature Friendly Garden and Best Overall Garden.

Gardeners can enter as many categories as they wish with the winner of each category receiving a £50 Cardwell gift voucher, a trophy engraved with their name to keep for until next year’s contest is held and a certificate.

Entry photographs should be emailed to cardwellgardenfest@gmail.com or posted to Cardwell’s Gardenfest, Cardwell Garden Centre, Lunderston Bay, By Gourock, PA19 1BB.

Entrants should include their name, postal address, email and phone contact details. The judges’ decisions are final.

The competition opened on Friday, June 9 and closes on Friday, August 25.

All entrants will be invited to the prize-giving event in September.

Cardwell director, Kieran Gallagher said: “There are many lovely gardens in South Ayrshire and this is a chance for keen gardeners to get some recognition for the hard work they put into their gardens.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the photographs that are entered for Cardwell’s Gardenfest and it’s a real pleasure to see the results of folks’ efforts to make their garden the best it can be.

“I know there are lots of extremely skilled gardeners out there and the entry photos will be testament to just how well their gardens grow.”