Good morning friends who love gardening, I am eager to try out content in this community that I found out existed through a friend! I traveled more than a hundred kilometers to participate in the international gardening competition in the city of "Pte Lima" in northern Portugal. I have had that tradition with my wife since this contest began in 2005. Currently, the champion of the 2023 festival is held by Argentina. We are going to walk through its green corridors to select our favorite this year. Will you join my adventure?🎄🌻
History of the competition🌍⛲
Today marks the 19th edition. This project was born with funding from the municipal chamber of "Pte Lima" along with some private sponsors who together gave free rein to the imagination of hundreds of people in the world who love the art of gardening. For a few months the garden has the collection of gardens that are participating in that year open to the public. For only 1 euro you can visit it. Then in winter the contest closes and the winners are selected. As I mentioned in the introduction, the competition was created in February 2004.🌻🌳
How to enter the competition and what are the jury's criteria?🥇🥈⛲
In this competition there are two modalities, one: (competition between schools) in which several schools present their project and go to the park to make their idea a reality, therefore we are going to see a section only for the school gardens, the second modality is (competition between countries) which can be individual or group, like any competition the jury will select the most creative garden, the one that uses unique and fun materials, history is also important that is why the garden must create a theme telling a story that was the inspiration to create its garden.🌻🌳🥇🥈
https://festivaldejardins.cm-pontedelima.pt/quem-somos
Let's see the gardens🌻🌼🌷⛲
The first garden we see is this one called "Constellation of Imagination" it is a garden whose theme is inspired by the constellations of the solar system as we see them on the metal plates, it has a sandy soil and some palm trees, you walk through it with a wooden bridge! Personally it is not among my favorites, it represents the country of Poland.🌻⛲🌷
This is one of our favorites and represents the country of Brazil. It was created by a group of art students, who captured the idea of conservation and good thoughts in a more organized theme with various techniques and the use of different organic and recyclable materials. What do you think?🌳🌻
We went to the garden "The Portal of the Senses" this is a beautiful piece of natural and floral art that as its name indicates touches different parts of your senses, this is interesting because there are several types of flowers that emit rich aromas and visually have organic decorations and with recyclable material, it represents Portugal and France! I think it is one of the things that we say "less is more" many people working here that in my opinion could have given a better presentation.⛲🌼
For me, the Swiss created the most beautiful garden in this edition, quite elegant and you can see a lot of effort in the gardening work, the combination of various species of flowers gave that subtle touch that represents the Swiss flag, they worked with plastic bubbles that show inside the identity of the Swiss people, including their main products and customs, for my wife and I it is the winner.🥇🌳🌷
Japan's work is not bad at all, many colorful flowers grow between the wooden path, in the center a giant ball with climbing plants, despite its dynamics it seemed a bit exaggerated to me, my wife did not like it much either.⛲🌻
England represents this garden with many figures and sculptures representing sculptural art, however, despite being beautiful, we believed that since it was a garden competition, they should have placed more flowers, but instead there is a lot of sand, leaving the feeling that something is missing.🌳🌼
Who is the current champion?🥇⛲
The current champion is Argentina, which exhibits this beautiful garden balanced between flowers and decorations, a walk to our childhood where the colors in the wood invite us to imagine when we were little and we climbed on the swings. It is clear that there is a lot of effort here for a single person who was a woman, a well-deserved victory! The champion has an Academy Award and in turn her garden will be exhibited in the next contest.🌻⛲🌷
This is the section of the gardens that the schools compete for.👧🏻👶🏻👼🏻👦🏻
A garden with the scent of peace🌻🌳⛲
Finally we have an area where all the winners from 2004 to 2023 are displayed, with Spain and Portugal being the two countries with the most victories, the country with the most wins is Spain with more than 5 titles, apparently Europeans are quite good at the art of gardening and creative themes. In addition to enjoying this experience, this garden is relaxing and quite calm and it is something that as parents we need in our daily lives to be able to deal with the stress of a baby, that is why I LOVE GARDENING.🌻🌷⛲
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