The City of Abbotsford has been honoured at a competitive national event measuring Canadian municipalities’ horticultural and gardening endeavours.
Abbotsford received a “Five blooms – bronze” rating” at the annual Communities in Bloom awards ceremony in Yarmouth, N.S.
The Pencil Patch program, which helps connecting students with gardens of their own, received a special mention at the ceremony. That program is a collaboration between the Abbotsford Community Garden Society, the BC Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation and the city.
Judges had evaluated the city and its businesses in several areas: tidiness, environmental action, heritage conservation, urban forestry, landscape and floral displays.
Abbotsford’s five bloom/bronze corresponds to a score of between 84 and 86.9 per cent. A score of 90 per cent is needed to achieve the five bloom/gold rating.
Volunteer judges Colleen Stockford and James Bourgeois wrote that the Pencil Patch program “shows teachers and their students what it takes to plant their own school gardens.”