A familiar name will be missing from the rose entries at the 2015 Grahamstown Flower Festival that takes place in early summer this year.
A familiar name will be missing from the rose entries at the 2015 Grahamstown Flower Festival that takes place in early summer this year.
A number of changes have been made to this year’s event, the main change being that the event will no longer be held over two days but instead on one day.
Also, the flower festival moves from the Monument on Gunfire Hill to Oatlands Preparatory School in African Street.
The event takes place three weeks earlier than last year's, on Saturday 10 October 2015.
For many years, Vernon Marais grew thousands of rose bushes on his smallholding in Belmont Valley.
A regular entrant and winner on several occasions in the festival’s popular flower competition, he suffered a debilitating stroke a year ago.
While he was undergoing treatment in Port Elizabeth, fellow members of the Albany Horticultural Society, which organises the flower festival, visited his property and proceeded to prune hundreds of roses.
When the time arrived for the 2014 flower festival, members chose the best blooms and entered them in the competition on Marais’s behalf.
There was a flurry of excitement when Marais was pushed into the competition area in a wheelchair, to be told one of his blooms had won the title of Champion Rose, and with it the Vernon Marais Cup, named after him.
Due to the huge workload involved in preparing the smallholding’s roses for show readiness, it has been decided there will be no entries from Vernon Marais this year.
And so the Vernon Marais Cup for the champion rose on show will be heading the way of a new recipient this year.
Grahamstown Flower Festival convenor Heather Surridge said despite the fact that Marais won't be among the entrants, there will still be a full entry of roses and other classes this year.
These include orchids, proteas, succulents, poppies, liliums and carnations.
As usual, the equally popular children’s competition that sees primary school pupils entering flower and plant arrangements will be a highlight.
Surridge said: “Each year pupils from local schools come up with the most amazing arrangements.
"I’m looking forward to seeing what ideas they come up with this year.”
For more flower festival information, visit www.grahamstownflowerfestival.co.za
