Showcasing u3a at Southport Flower Show: The build up

Following on from their success with their Show Garden at Southport Flower Show last year, Southport u3a have returned to the show with a new garden showcasing u3a and a u3a garden design competition. Vice Chair Chris talks through what the group have planned.

Taking centre stage in the Societies Tent, we are staging an elegant tea party garden encased in a wrought iron bird cage gazebo. The garden is surrounded by a glorious array of plants and flowers with velvet bunting showcasing some of the many u3a interest groups available.

The Events Team, headed by Lisa and Diane, grew most of the plants and together with Denise and Christine, built the garden over five very busy days. Luckily we chose a tent location as the rain has been persistent during the build.

In addition, Southport u3a has run a National u3a Design Garden Competition.  This has been judged by award winning Garden Designer Carolyn Hardern and the winners will be presented with their prizes at the Flower Show. The designs submitted have been so creative and inspirational. The brief was to design a small 6m x 6m garden, suitable for a u3a Member, to be environmentally friendly and with no budgetary limitations. Wow, have we had some wonderful designs. All entries will be displayed at the Flower Show this week.

We have also been asked to manage Southport Flower Show's catering theatre where a host of celebrity chefs will be doing their stuff. Our u3a members will be supporting the chefs behind the scenes and managing the tastings and crowd control.

We really feel like part of the whole show now. This has now become a solid long term community activity for our u3a with great relationship building and support within our town. It could have been the cream cakes we bought for all the flower show staff but more probably because we always seem to have a lot of fun.

The Southport Flower Show is taking place Thursday 17 August - Sunday 20 August. u3a members can buy tickets at a special discount price of £19 by entering the code SFSU3A in the discount box.