Pauline Carter of Kerikeri, a first time entrant, was named overall show champion for this perfect pot of pink diamond tulips.
Pauline Carter of Kerikeri, a first time entrant, was named overall show champion for this perfect pot of pink diamond tulips.
The overall winner of Kerikeri Garden Club's spring flower show has put her success down to "beginner's luck" and using her fridge to mimic a Northern Hemisphere winter.
First-time entrant Pauline Carter won the overall show champion title for a pot of pink diamond tulips so perfect visitors wondered ifthey were real.
The former kiwifruit orchardist said the cold weather winter tulips needed was hard to arrange in the Far North so she popped the bulbs in the fridge for a week before potting them and placing them in the shadiest corner of her section.
She moved them to a warmer spot once the tulips emerged, then on to the veranda when they started budding.
Mrs Carter bought the bulbs from The Warehouse and cheap potting mix from Bunnings, proving you needn't spend lots of money to get good results.
"Chilling them is definitely the secret," she said.
The champion bloom winner was Mary Lyle, of Kerikeri, a life-long gardener and first-time flower-show competitor, too.
Mary Lyle of Kerikeri with the show champion bloom, a daffodil that popped up in her garden on the morning entries were due in.
She had prepared a dozen blooms but, on the morning of the show, a daffodil opened up next to her garden shed. That last-minute entry proved the winner.
Mrs Lyle also won a first place for a calendula and a third for a coloured freesia.
A proud parent snaps a photo on her phone of the winning kids.
The show at the Turner Centre, attracted just under 1000 entries - 648 flowers, fruit, vegetables, pot plants and arrangements, plus 324 children's entries ranging from pressed flower bookmarks to vegetable animals. Blooms were entered from as far away as the Hokianga.
Club president Ann Truscott said the spring weather, with fluctuating temperatures and a hail storm a week before the show, was against gardeners this year.
Nine-year-old Rebecca White, of Kerikeri, won first prize for best shell sculpture for this crocodile made from bits of shells found on a Coromandel beach.
The winning daffodil was a perfect bloom, especially given the weather conditions, and the champion tulips were outstanding.
"To grow them as well as that shows gardening genius," she said.
