Many congratulations to Debbie Smith on her prize-winning garden, and well done for choosing to support the wonderful work of Dartmouth In Bloom by entering the hidden gardens contest and for brightening up her and her neighbours' view.

I'm pleased to say that The Windjammer has supported Dartmouth In Bloom for many years, and like Debbie, we were very chuffed to win a prize, in our case in the public house category. Many thanks to our cellarman and head gardener Steve 'Oz' Osbourne and his groundsman Chris for their hard work in that regard.

And we'd like to assure Debbie that although we bought our plants as 'plugs' from, yes, the excellent Bugford Nursery, we plant them out ourselves and bring them on for a month or so before the baskets and window boxes go up on the front of the pub, and then work hard watering, feeding and deadheading to keep the flowers blooming.

 We, however, are lucky enough to have a glass-covered terrace in the middle of our property that allows Oz to bring on the plants so well – a real luxury in a town like Dartmouth, where so few buildings in the centre have any outside space at all.

Which is where the guys at Bugford provide an excellent service to those businesses who want to make their properties attractive but lack maybe the facilities, the time or even, especially in our personal case (so thanks again Oz) the ability to produce a fine floral display without some help.

And, of course, Bugford is as much a part of the Dartmouth economy as any other locally owned business.

To see them benefit from spending by other local businesses is heartening, especially when such spending helps town centre business proprietors clad their premises with flowers, which helps both them and Dartmouth in Bloom, and surely benefits us all in having an enjoyable environment in which to live, work and play.