Local pub and restaurant, the Babbacombe Inn, is celebrating after scooping a host of awards in just five days for its fantastic floral displays. On Saturday 28 September the Babbacombe Inn won the Daily Mirror Best Pub Garden competition and on Thursday 3 October it won yet more awards at the Bay Blooms ceremony at Torquay’s Riviera International Conference Centre. During the evening the Babbacombe Inn was named as winner of the Best Public House and Restaurant Garden, was awarded the South West Water Wildlife Trophy and finished the evening by being presented with the Supreme Cup.
The Babbacombe Inn is situated on Babbacombe Downs and has a large pub garden. Owner, Martyn Strange, says “We’re delighted to have won these awards. The garden is extremely popular with our customers. Obviously the view from here, out across the bay, is second to none but we’re very keen to have the whole garden looking as fabulous as possible. We really value the location that we have and it’s nice to be able to enhance the area further with some stunning floral displays. Whilst our garden has had a great reputation locally for some time it’s obviously very nice to have that recognised with a national award as well.”
The garden is planted and managed by local man Ron Doidge. 75 year old Ron is an extremely keen gardener and puts an enormous amount of time and effort into the gardens at the Babbacombe Inn. Martyn says “Ron is a great chap. He knows so much about horticulture and I just let him get on with it. He plans the display and we go off together to buy all the baby plants he wants so that he can bring them on ready for planting out in the summer. I usually give him a budget which he rarely sticks to but I’m more than happy to invest in a great display at the Babbacombe Inn and if Ron says we need more giant double cascading begonias then who am I to argue?”
As autumn draws in the summer displays are over and Ron is busy planting to ensure that there is as much winter and spring colour in the garden as possible. But the planning for next summer goes on and with Ron’s knowledge, flair and secret planting compost recipe, expect more great things from this award winning garden in 2014.