Trowels at the Ready as Ideal Carehomes Launches ‘Gardens in Bloom’ Contest

Care provider, Ideal Carehomes has launched its annual ‘Gardens in Bloom’ competition across its 23 Yorkshire, North West and Midlands care homes.

The contest encourages both staff and residents to work together to embrace their love of the great outdoors by devising and implementing an exciting revamp for their outdoor spaces that everybody can enjoy during the summer months.

Each year, the garden transformations are a real community effort, with the homes partnering with local garden centres, businesses and schools in a covid-19 safe way, who generously donate flowers, paints, gardening tools and decorations to help create the wonderful displays and impressive garden features.

Last year the Greenacres team based in Huddersfield took home the prestigious overall winner title. The team impressed judges with an upcycling project, transforming old garden furniture into new chic seating areas. The team also installed a new vegetable patch garden to grow fresh herbs and a personalised garden mural that represented each resident who lives at the Meltham home.

However, it was their ‘Secret Night Garden’ that really blew the judges away, with a tranquil seating area under a beautifully decorated pergola featuring climbing roses and waterfall fairy lights, the new design provides the perfect hideaway to relax.

Ashworth Grange in Dewsbury came in a close second with their seaside themed garden entry with featured many sensory elements such as a sandpit and memory-evoking pictures framed on the garden walls and fences.

The competition judges are made up of Ideal Carehomes Directors, who will select regional winners before crowning the overall national winner later this summer.

Ideal Carehomes Managing Director, Stacey Linn, said, ‘The competition throughout summer 2020 was a real high point of the year and enjoyed by all, it really was wonderful to see the relationships built and nurtured when residents and staff worked together to create an outdoor masterpiece. I thoroughly enjoyed my visits to the finalist homes last year and was really impressed with everyone’s efforts – I can’t wait to see all of this year’s displays and if Greenacres are able to retain their winning status or if they will pass the baton to a different home!’.

Ideal Carehomes provides 24 hour residential and dementia care in newly built state-of-the-art homes across Yorkshire, the North of England and the Midlands. Residents can enjoy a full programme of health, leisure and wellbeing activities managed by a dedicated team of carers. For more information about Ideal Carehomes or to arrange a visit, contact our friendly customer service team on 0113 465 4000 or visit https://ichlive1.wpengine.com