2015 Spring Garden Competition

About the Spring Garden Competition

The City of Ryde has a long and proud history of conducting the Spring Garden Competition. This established community event has been held annually for more than twenty years. The City of Ryde is one of the few local councils still organising and providing a garden competition for its local residents and local community.

The Spring Garden Competition is a popular community event that has a unique 'hands on' quality. Creative and well-tended garden entries are expected from a wide variety of city landscapes including traditional back gardens, small garden patches, courtyards, balconies, river-frontages, corporate green-spaces, community gardens, school yards and large tracts of natural bushland.

This is an inclusive event and we strongly encourage entries from young aspiring green thumbs (children) to older green thumbs (seniors), individual gardeners, families, community groups, different cultural groups, gardeners with different abilities, commercial organisations and small businesses. With eleven categories of entry, there is certainly something for everyone.

Entry Categories:

Large Gardens: large private residential gardens - maybe the whole garden or just a section.

Small Gardens: small private residential gardens - maybe the whole garden or just a section.

Courtyard or Balcony Gardens: private residential gardens using pots, planter boxes, ornaments, walled gardens etc.

Edible Gardens: private residential gardens featuring vegetable gardens, fruit gardens and/or permaculture gardens etc.

Native and Habitat-friendly Gardens: gardens which feature Australian native plants and include habitat friendly elements to encourage native fauna such as birds, lizards, possums and insects.

Children's Garden: private residential gardens inspired and created by a child, group of children or a family with young children.

School Gardens: gardens within local primary or high schools where students and teachers or the community have worked together.

Pre-School Gardens: gardens within local pre-schools where students and teachers or the community have worked together.

Community Gardens: garden projects where the local community, groups or community organisations have worked together.

Commercial Gardens: gardens within local businesses and commercial organisations eg. hotels, retirement villages, commercial premises, small and large businesses, universities etc.

Bushcare Sites: for an outstanding contribution made by volunteers at a recognised Bushcare site.

Entry Details

• All entries must be based in the City of Ryde local government area.
• Entry to the 2015 Spring Garden Competition is free.
• Entries open on Wednesday 1 July 2015.
• Entries close on Monday 31 August 2015.

Other Key Dates

• Early September 2015: City of Ryde council officer will contact entrants to confirm their allocated time and date for judging.
• Mid-September to early October 2015: Garden judges accompanied by a City of Ryde council officer will visit and judge all Spring Garden Competition entries on the allocated date at the allocated timeslot.
• 22 October 2015: All entrants will be invited to attend the Gala Presentation Evening at Eden Gardens where you can meet and mingle with fellow gardeners, community representatives and supporters of the event. The highlight of this evening will be the announcement of the 2015 Spring Garden Competition winners and place getters.

Further information: www.ryde.nsw.gov.au or City of Ryde Customer Service 9952 8222.

The 2015 Spring Garden Competition is proudly brought to you by the City of Ryde.

We acknowledge and thank our event sponsors for their support:

• Gold Sponsors: Eden Gardens, Snowden Parkes Real Estate and Top Ryde City.
• Silver Sponsor: SUEZ environnement.
• Bronze Sponsor: Sam the Paving Man.