With a good mixture of sunshine, hot days and rain of late, things are looking up for a bumper Grahamstown Flower Festival, with record entries likely in all the flower and plant categories.
With a good mixture of sunshine, hot days and rain of late, things are looking up for a bumper Grahamstown Flower Festival, with record entries likely in all the flower and plant categories.
The 2014 Grahamstown Flower Festival takes over the ground floor and fountain area of the 1820 Settlers National Monument on Gunfire Hill over the weekend of Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November.
This is the first occasion on which the flower festival is being held in the Monument, previous festivals having taken place in school and community halls, as well as the Makana Botanical Gardens.
The organising committee, headed by Heather Surridge, comprises members of the Albany Horticultural and Lilium Society. They’ve been hectically busy the past few months putting the festival programme together.
The main sponsor of the event is JoJo Tanks. JoJo Tanks' Eugene Cerino will give a presentation on the positive aspects of owning a JoJo water tank.
JoJo Tanks is also donating three tanks – one 2500-litre and two Slimline tanks – as prizes to lucky festival goers.
JoJo Tanks will be one of over 30 companies and individuals manning commercial stalls at the flower festival.
Others are Sunshine Garden Ornaments; Knott Gardens Nursery (roses); Sundays River Honey; Garden Gnomes & Outside Décor; Mycoroot; Executive Pet Products; Salem Crossroads; and Sunnyside Garden Centre.
The fountain area of the Monument will be occupied in its entirety by the ever-popular plant and flower competitions, with adults and primary schoolchildren putting on wonderful, colourful displays.
Judging will take place between 9am and 11am on Saturday.
Upstairs in the Olive Schreiner hall will be various talks and workshops dealing with essential oils, practical aquaponics, bonsai growing and water tanks, plus a special children’s workshop on growing succulents. The talks and workshops will be spread over both days of the festival.
Festival goers will need to keep some time in reserve for the commercial garden stalls that will occupy the Monument entrance area and the ground floor areas.
These stalls will carry a host of products ranging from horticultural and gardening books, fuchsias, wire art, garden ornaments and fertilizers to seedlings, plants, trees, honey, succulents and rose bushes.
Stallholders will be on hand to explain their wares and give advice where required.
This year’s live music entertainment comes in the form of the exciting, foot-tapping sounds of the Graeme College steel band (1pm on Saturday), and the haunting, goosebump-inducing sounds of the St Andrew’s College pipe band (1pm on Sunday).
For children, there’s still more – a treasure hunt will have children scampering about from 2pm on the Saturday, meeting in the fountain area.
Traipsing up and down from talks to workshops and from stall to stall can be a tad tiring, and the organisers have laid on food and refreshment stalls for all tastes.
The flower festival times are from 9am to 5pm on the Saturday, and from 9am to 3.30pm on the Sunday.
For further festival information visit website grahamstownflowerfestival.co.za
