Over the last few weeks, Bents Garden & Home has once again been preparing for one of its most hotly contested competitions – its Junior Petunia Growing Competition, the finals of which took place at the Centre on Saturday 12th June. Children from 9 different primary schools descended on the Centre with their carefully cultivated entries and waited for the final decision to be announced.
After careful consideration from the expert judges a decision was made, and Jake Hurst from Chowbent Primary School was announced as the overall Champion Petunia Grower. Jake was presented with prizes, including £100.00 worth of vouchers for his school and a Bents goodie bag, by Mark Downton, the Outside Operations Manager at Bents.
Children aged between 4 and 8 from nine different primary schools have been growing their petunias for the past couple of months, following strict guidelines to ensure no unfair advantage could be had. Bents Garden & Home supplied the schools with all plants, pots and compost so that the children could plant their own Petunias and take care of their growth and development. Winners from each school were chosen as follows:
1. Nicole Callan James Brindley
2. Paris Cooke Cadishead Primary School
3. Jake Hurst Chowbent Primary School
4. Louis Smith Woolston C of E Primary School
5. Joe Campbell Newchurch Primary School
6. Amy Robinson Manley Village Primary School
7. Louis Thompson Cobbs Infant and Nursery School
8. Edward McGloughlin Culcheth Community Primary School
9. Alex Zadeh St Joseph’s Primary School
Said Matthew Bent, Managing Director at Bents Garden & Home: “The Junior Petunia competition is always great fun to organise! We would like to congratulate all those who took part in this year’s competition - there were some great entries. As always it was very difficult to choose the winner, but Jake’s petunia was a beautiful shape and size.
“We think any initiative that gets children enthusiastic about plants and planting is a great idea and like to encourage hands-on activities such as the Petunia competition. We also run planting workshops as part of our Ready Steady Dig scheme which will run throughout the summer holidays and we would love to see as many children as possible come along and take part.”