A great deal more to see

What goes around comes around, which is why July is always a month to celebrate – it’s the Great Yorkshire Show with all its horses, cows, sheep, and, of course, gardens and plants.

And, as usual, green-fingered visitors to this year’s YS will be in for a real treat when they drop into the Garden Show, which over the years has grown in size and stature to be recognised as a leading horticultural show in its own right.

And there are a number of firsts being notched up at this year’s events, which runs from July 10-12, in Harrogate.

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The organisers of the Garden Show have pulled out all the stops to provide a varied programme of talks and demonstrations, competitions and stunning blooms.

The Feature Garden Competition, introduced for the first time last year with just four landscape gardening companies, has more than doubled in size with nine teams of gardeners battling it out for the top prize. Each is allocated space on the 250-acre showground, ranging in size from 5m to 4m to 7m by 10m – and has to create a feature garden from scratch.

And in an exciting new addition to the show, visitors will be able to see a garden being designed, set out, created and planted throughout the three days of the event by a team of landscape garden students from Askham Bryan College.

The students will be battling it out in the hope of being chosen as a member of “Team UK” for the 2013 Worldskills contest taking place in Leipzig, Germany.

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Once again, the finalists of the popular Children’s Vegetable Garden competition will be invited showing off the fruits of their labour. Hundreds of schoolchildren have been growing fruit and vegetables in boxes provided by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, and keeping diaries detailing their work – the best are invited to the show, with the winners chosen by TV gardening expert Christine Walkden.

Every day, on the main stage in the Garden Show, experts will be sharing their ideas and inspiring gardeners with a series of talks and demonstrations, ranging from how to select and plant bulbs to a step-by-step guide on how to design and build a garden. And exhibitors in the Flower Show will also be battling it out for the top prizes and honour of winning the Great Yorkshire Show’s trophies, including the prestigious Doncaster Cup.

Visit www.greatyorkshireshow.co.uk