Highland Rock Garden Club - 46th annual spring flower show - report from David Shaw

Thanks to David Shaw for this reprot on the Highland Rock Garden Club Show: 

"On Saturday the Highland Rock Garden Club were in the Community Centre to stage their 46th annual spring flower show and plants sale. It was an un-seasonally cold day for Nairn but stayed mostly dry with even the odd glimpse of sun!

This is a national show and attracted exhibitors to Nairn from Glasgow, and the Lothians as well as our local members from Highland and Moray who turned the Community Centre hall into a mass of colour. Of the many entries on the benches it was with great pleasure that we watched the judges award the Forrest Medal for the best plant in the whole show to Highland Club members Francis and Margaret Higgins from Berridale for a fantastic pan of Pleione orchids. This was a first for the Higgins and a first Forrest medal for members of the Highland Club; very well done to them.

Among our newer exhibiting members are Hamish and Sue Mackintosh from Dalcross who not only delighted the show secretaries with their car full of plants but also brought along some very nice exhibits. Under Hamish’s name was a magnificent pot of the snakes-head fritillary Fritillariameleagrisalba carefully lifted from the garden and looking excellent and a lovely miniature garden of small plants along with a named plan of the garden. Sue then took the credit for a pan of Primula vulgaris ‘Drumcliff’ in our Section V. Other local exhibits to inspire was a nicely grown pot of the New Zealand foliage plant Celmisiacoriacea by Olive Bryers, Balloch and a Trillium luteum plus a pan of Fritillariaacmopetala from John Owen, Fort Augustus.

In the past we have experienced a great rush of visitors to the show as soon as it opened whilst this year we noticed a steady trickle throughout the day. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves looking at the show, buying plants and enjoying the bakes offered by the Nairn Amateur Athletics Association Club. Many thanks to all our exhibitors, helpers and visitors with our sympathy going to those who chose to stay until Sunday to drive south – I know one Edinburgh couple who took five hours to drive from Newtonmore to Edinburgh in the snow, ugh!"

Below some pictures from David and the SRGC. Individual images here.  A spreadsheet of the award winners also available here. 

More pictures and comments can be found on the SRGC Forum page here.