Residents are being urged to share their enjoyment of gardening using whatever means is currently available in their homes and gardens, with photographs of the finished work being submitted to a panel of judges for online viewing by the end of July.

There are several different categories for residents to enter, with judging considered for hanging baskets and window boxes, balcony displays, large or small gardens, and environmentally friendly spaces amongst others.

Councillor Felicity Rice, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change commented, “This competition celebrates all the hard work that people put into making their gardens and house plants beautiful, and even more so this year with people spending more time at home to tend to their plants.

“The competition has been adapted due to Covid-19 with photographs of the displays being sent for judging, so I’m looking forward to seeing all the entries when they go online.

“In particular, there is also a category specifically for wildlife gardening this year because of the sad loss of 50 per cent of insects in Dorset since 1970, and up to 95 per cent of hedgehogs. There is no such thing as a ‘hedgehog friendly slug pellet’ for example, and many pesticides in garden centres are really harmful to wildlife, so I would really encourage people to pledge to do pesticide free gardening and see what interesting wildlife and birds are attracted to your garden.”

To find out more and enter your horticultural skills into this year’s competition, please visit https://pooleprojects.net/poole-in-bloom-2020/.