Garden Of The Year 2011: Best commercial garden

THE landlord who has created more than 100 hanging baskets in his pub garden has won Commercial Garden Of The Year.

Garden Of The Year 2011 is run by the Bedfordshire Times & Citizen and Biggleswade Chronicle with Frosts at Willington and is sponsored by Bedford In Bloom.

Ron Randall, who runs the Bluebell pub in Putnoe, Bedford with his wife Denise, was delighted to find out he had won the commercial category.

Ron, 65, said: “I was really pleased when I found out we had won. We moved in here 10 years ago and it is actually quite an ugly building, so we decided to put some hanging baskets up to brighten the place up a bit.

“But every year it has just grown and grown. We started out with 25 hanging baskets, but we now have 109 - they’re the main attraction of the garden.

“We also have rose bushes and perennial flowers. I’m really pleased with the end product of the garden but I don’t actually like gardening that much, so I’m very pleased to have won.”

Ron created the garden with the help of Denise until two years ago. He now does the majority of it himself with the help from a gardener twice a week.

He added: “Me and Denise used to do it together, but she stopped two years ago when the kitchen became too busy. I spend quite a lot of my time in the garden, especially watering the flowers.”

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