By Amanda Swaney
THIS spring season has been sensational for our gardens and the Mansfield Show Pavilion Competitions on Saturday, November 20 will provide gardeners with the chance to show off their roses, sweet peas, native flowering shrubs and floral art.
Juniors can soar into imaginative worlds and enter a fairy garden, animal or space age man or an egg cup of flowers.
With Halloween just around the corner, best decorated pumpkin may inspire them to create a Jack–O–Lantern or witch creature.
Rose growers can again compete for the champion rose, sponsored by the Parks family.
Val Parks, who was a local identity, won champion rose on 35 occasions.
She was well known for her horticultural skills and she entered the floriculture competition for 46 years – "hers is a record which will never be beaten".
She inspired others to try and "knock her off her perch" says her husband Lloyd.
Val was very competitive and before rose growing was a passion she was one of the first female jockeys in Australia competing very successfully in country races and had 12 rides for nine wins.
Her daughter Glenda continues the rose growing tradition and in 2019 won the arrangement of roses class.
With over 200 roses to care for Glenda and Lloyd are kept busy with pruning and fighting pests.
"It's important to open up the rose to let air flow through the foliage," advises Lloyd, "and fertilising with horse or sheep manure feeds the plants well."
Glenda's advice for combating leaf chewing earwigs is to place a rolled–up newspaper at the base of the rose.
The earwigs crawl in for shelter and then it's a simple task to pick up and burn the paper in the morning.
Like many competitors in the Mansfield Show, the Parks want to see people enjoying the competition and striving to produce better flowers and garden produce every year.
Glenda believes, "It's inspiring to see such beauty and also to know that people want to be involved in our Mansfield Agricultural show and be part of the community just like Val was."
The show schedule and entry forms are available at mansfieldaandpsociety.com.au.