The judges have been in Woolwell for the Britain In Bloom South West competition.

This year the team have gone up to the next category in the ‘nationals’ as they are known and will be first competing places of a similar size in the wider South West region stretching from Wiltshire to the tip of Cornwall.

Founder of Woolwell in Bloom Soraya Lewis-Coleman said: “ We were judged by two regional judges, Graham and John.

“They certainly know their business.

“They saw our many displays, taking lots of notes and photographs, met many of the seniors, and then got to meet all the juniors and watch them dig up their treasure.”

The judges take a maximum of two hours walking around and as well as the main entry were judging other categories such as “It’s Your School’ entered by Bumblebees Nursery and the junior section took part in “Its Your Neighbourhood.’

If they win gold they will be put against others with the winner becoming Champion of Champions.

This year has meant an unusual problem though, herds of fallow deer: “The deer have been coming to eat everything we've watered and what we found this time more than in previous years is that the babies would pick at stuff and they would either spit it out or eat it but we're finding this year that all deer are pulling plants out and eating the roots to get the moisture and of course the top half of the plant shrivels up and dies so the judges this year have had to take that into consideration as well as the prolonged lack of rain,” Soraya explained.

The results won’t be announced until Thursday, October 8 which will be a tense wait as Soraya explains: “All of August and September, it's like, we'll know soon, we'll know soon and then the beginning of October hits us and we get e-mails to say, judging this year, we'll be held on such-and-such a date at a such-and-such a venue.”

“There they give out all the different awards.”