Question mark over flower show's future

A WANGANUI hall was filled with gorgeous flowers at the weekend.
But entries in some categories were down or non-existent, and organisers of the city's annual Autumn Flower Show wonder how long the it can last in its present form.
Show secretary Lyn Hoskyn and organiser Margaret Gibbard said the exacting work of growing champion blooms seemed to appeal mainly to older men ? and there weren't many new members coming through the ranks.
"It's hard to get the younger generation to commit to specialise. They like nice gardens and they will spend money, but they won't specialise into anything," Miss Gibbard said.
"Our main growers are men, and it's the same with roses, daffodils and orchids. "The future is a bit hard to predict. With the rose society, over a third of the members are in rest homes."
Attempts had been made to get young people interested by helping with gardening in schools, but it was found that the gardens stopped being tended when interested teachers left. They also offered bulbs to schools, so that pupils could grow them on and exhibit potted gardens. Only about three schools, country ones, took up the offer.
Encouragement was therefore offered to novice exhibitor Betty Meads during the weekend ? she got a special award.
Wanganui City College hall held about 1500 blooms and was open to the public during the weekend, for the combined Wanganui Horticultural Society and Wanganui Chrysanthemum Club show. Most of the flowers were chrysanthemums, with a table of dahlias and supplementary exhibits by the Bonsai Buddies and African violet society, and flower arrangements from the Wanganui Floral Art Group and Country Women's Institute.
The 25 main exhibitors came from Wanganui, Palmerston North, Taihape, Woodville and Feilding.
The judges were from Palmerston North, Taihape and Wanganui.
It was the first time the college hall had been used for the show, and it worked well.
"It's compact and friendly, and sets the show off nicely. Everybody has remarked on it," Ms Hoskyn said.
At first the organisers were afraid there wouldn't be enough entries.
The changeable and humid weather had caused problems with some flowers not opening when expected, and others damping off.
"You get Wednesday flowers. They'll open in the week before or the week after, never on a Saturday," Ms Hoskyn said. It took eight to 10 years to learn to grow a professional standard chrysanthemum, Feilding's Barry Willan said.
Watering was particularly critical. Mr Willan grew this year's champion blooms.
"I had a stint very early on, then knocked off for about 15 years and brought up the children, then started again."
His chyrsanthemum specialities were fantasies and exhibition incurved, and he said people tended to specialise in the type they grew best.