A flourishing success for HC-One’s Gardening Competition winnersThis year HC-One’s annual Gardening Competition saw a number of outstanding creations submitted for a variety of award categories from care homes across the UK. This year’s Gardening Competition has been even more significant in bringing joy and excitement to Residents and Colleagues, during what has been a difficult time due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The gardening competition offered HC-One homes with the perfect opportunity earlier this year to go outside and make their gardens look wonderful, coinciding with visiting restrictions gradually easing, to welcome visitors back into homes and gardens. Residents enjoyed being outside in the fresh air, enjoying the calmness, freedom and personal discovery that the garden environment provides. Gardening helps individuals, in particular those living with dementia, by improving their wellbeing and physical health through keeping people active and helping them to remain stimulated, feel valued and useful. The judges were really excited to see what Residents and Colleagues achieved this year. 

It has been an amazing year for entries, and the judges thoroughly enjoyed seeing so many gardening projects from across HC-One’s homes. 

The judges for this year’s competition were Karen Johnson, former Clinical Director and Chief Nurse; Gary Reed, Property Director and James Tugendhat, Chief Executive Officer at HC-One, who judged the competition virtually this year. 

This year there were four categories that care homes could enter and a number of prizes to be won: 

• The best pot/basket – six prizes of £50 each, a plaque and certificate.
• Best first impressions – two prizes of £250 each, a plaque and certificate.
• Best outdoor visiting area – six prizes of £250 each, a plaque and certificate.
• Green fingers award for Residents who showed outstanding gardening skills in their projects – seventeen prizes of £50 per home and a certificate.

Gary Reed, Property Director at HC-One stated, 

“I have really enjoyed being a judge in this year’s Gardening Competition. It was a pleasure to review the wonderful entries submitted by our care homes. We had a high number and standard of entries this year. Thank you to all those who participated and congratulations to all of our winners.” 

The overall winner of this year’s Gardening Competition who stood out and submitted an exemplary entry was Kirkwood Court Care Home who won a prize of £750, a plaque and certificate.

Angela Douglass, Home Manager at Kirkwood Court Care Home said,

“We are delighted to have been chosen as the overall winner of this year’s Gardening Competition by the HC-One judges. Our Colleagues and Residents thoroughly enjoyed transforming our garden environment. I’m delighted to see that their hard work has helped to enhance the outdoor areas of our care home for visitors and our Residents to enjoy all year round.”

James Tugendhat, Chief Executive Officer at HC-One commented,

“Well done to all our Residents and Colleagues who participated in this year’s gardening competition. We were delighted with the number of submissions we received and were very impressed with the efforts and transformations that we saw. Congratulations to all of our winners!”

The winners of the best pot/basket category are:

• Capwell Grange 
• Maple Court 
• The Westbury 
• Hyde 
• Defoe Court 
• The Orchard 

For the best first impressions category the winners were St Christopher’s and The Westbury Care Home. 

The winners of the best outdoor visiting area category are: 

• Seabrooke Manor Care Home 
• Stoneyford Care Home 
• Bellefield Care Home 
• Clarendon Hall Care Home 
• Kirkwood Court Care Home 
• The Birches Care Home 

Last, but certainly not least, this year’s green fingers award category winners, who are Residents living in HC-One care homes, are: 

• Cedar House – Karl Wilson and Joyce Pullen
• The Elms – Kevin Archer
• The Polegate – Doreen Catton, Rose Dye, Colin Mongardi, Jackie Wood and Ethel Cox
• Acacia – Stanley Parfrement
• Bankwood – Julia Gell, Arthur Redfern, Stuart Cowlishaw, Janet Gilks, Michael Burns and Ida Day 
• Stadium Court – John Lowe 
• Berry Hill Park – Barbara Grimes
• The Orchards – Margaret Sarjent
• Willow Brook – Michael Measham 
• Westwood Lodge – Jean Kindley
• Avandale Lodge – Hedley Davies
• Averill House – Carol Morris, Mina Shaw, Vera Smith, Mavis McDougal, Doris Jones and Eileen Adamson
• Greengables – Michael Widdows
• The Millbrook – Sheila Baxter and Jackie Wright
• Ashington Grange – Kath Anderson 
• Bishopsgate Lodge – John Parker, Judy Muller and Heather Linsley
• Grampian Court – June Peace
 
The judges of the HC-One Gardening Competition were very grateful to all entrants for taking part and were particularly impressed with the amazing quality of entries, making it a very difficult and hard decision for the judges to decide on this year’s winners! 

This year’s prize winners were selected based on a number of key components including Resident involvement, effort, transformation, creativity and presentation. HC-One has had a great success with this year’s Gardening Competition and look forward to running the Gardening Competition in subsequent years to come. 
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