There’s been many words bandied around in relation to COVID 19, that we are literally sick of hearing them…
unprecedented, pandemic, social distancing, uncertain times, and the ‘new normal.’
We hear them so often that after a while, they become a heavy weight on our shoulders, and every single day we hear more bad news and the black cloud over our happiness descends again. All this doom and gloom seems to blanket our lives till we get to the point where it really does feel like our former carefree life-styles are well and truly over.
This in turn, over flows into our family life, and before we know it, we’ve forgotten how to have fun or even hope for a positive future.
Hence Project LockDown was created.
Here at the nursery we realised that a lot of our customers were finding some snippets of joy working in their garden. So many families are planning and planting out new fruit tree orchards, some were creating their very first vegetable and herb gardens. It’s been so good to see this change in regards to gardening, and a lot of them suddenly realised that its not just all hard work….it’s actually fun and great exercise too!
So here at Wingham Nursery, we decided what better time for a garden competition?
So we set the challenge to…..
Create a themed garden or garden sculpture just using what they had tucked away in their garden sheds, back yards and in toy boxes.
Three categories : Gardens made for kids, by the kids themselves, family gardens made by all the family, or a garden to reflect how Covid 19 and the lockdown has effected them.
But most of all, it’s about spending quality time in the garden and sharing it with the kids.
We’ve had so much positive feed back from customers in-store and through our Facebook page.
It seems everyone’s been hanging out for something to distract. We’ve been totally blown away with some of the entries and the greatest result has been seeing how enthusiastic the children have been in creating their very own garden-fantasy land.
Sunshine and fresh air have been a great antidote for too much ‘screen time,’ and the dreaded home schooling; many of the adult entrants have discovered their creative side for the first time; now having the time and space to spend quality time in the garden.
These two years of Covid have literally been the busiest times we at the nursery have ever seen in our almost 50 year history. So we are very grateful for the patronage of our local community.
When mental health through this time has taken a toll on many families, it’s been wonderful to see that gardening has continued to bring people not only peace, but personal satisfaction to many others who have never tried their hands at growing plants and feeding themselves from their very own backyards.
And heaven knows this busy time has helped the nursery recover from the recent few years of drought, where we were literally thinking that our business wouldn’t make it through that tough time.
And thanks to these busy times, we’ve been able to put up some really good prizes; over $550.00 worth!
The winner from each of the 3 categories will win a $100.00 Gift voucher, second prizes are a $50.00 gift voucher and the third prize winners will receive a hamper packed with gardening goodies.
Entries close on the 1st of October, with the winners announced on the 2nd of October.
We have three independent Judges. Rowena Meldrum from Tinonee, Lisa Palmer from Wingham and George Hoad from Killabakh.
All our judges are frequent customers who have a deep passion for gardening and also have a great community spirit.
We are so glad we decided to have independent judges; it’s going to be really tough judging the entrants, they have been outstanding in creativity and hard work And because of this, we’ll be awarding all entrants with a gift pack just for entering; we feel everyone should be rewarded for their great motivation and encouraging their children to get out in the garden!
There’s still plenty of time to enter, so don’t miss out on these great prizes, and better yet, get out into that yard and create that unique garden with your kids, we know you’ll surprise yourselves and have fun doing it!
Bring on October 2nd, we can’t wait to see who wins!!!!!
Tanya Sawyer and the management and staff of Wingham Nursery and Florist.