Bloom crew out to defend their crown

OLDHAM is blooming as “Past, Present and Future” gardens merge together in a blaze of colour.

Gardens of yesteryear, today and tomorrow provided the inspiration behind the theme of this year’s North-West in Bloom entry.

The borough’s gardeners are busily putting the finishing touches to their displays ahead of judging.

And they have a tough act to follow, after Oldham last year clinched the Best City award — based on population size — and in 2009 won Best Town Centre title after a seven-year absence from the contest.

Oldham’s town-centre creation is the flagship display which takes viewers on a journey through the ages.

Split into three segments, it encompasses the past, present and future theme, focussing on the high-maintenance gardens of the Victorian era, running through to today’s gardens of bed mulching and crop-growing between flowers, and ending with the designers’ idea of a garden from the future.

Work is still very much in progress, with a display at the Cross Street traffic lights bringing the best from a top-quality garden of the past, currently under construction.

And the controversial Bloom and Grow bucket and spade display which impressed judges in last year’s competition is being recreated in the grounds of Derker’s Mayfield School as part of a school project.

Judges will gather at the Civic Centre on Thursday, July 28, and head along Huddersfield Road to the Waterhead allotments, Waterhead Park, Vulcan Street, Mayfield School, Stoneleigh Park, back to Vulcan Street, Ripponden Road, Huddersfield Road, and along Union Street to end at Gallery Oldham.

There they will see an innovative display featuring vegetables and salad which will be picked and used in Gallery Oldham’s cafe.