Community & Business
29 September, 2022
Oakey garden scores grand champion title
Oakey residents Wayne and Narelle Schick took home a collection of awards and accolades for their garden in this year’s Carnival of Flowers Garden Competition.
Spring has well and truly sprung, with gardens all over the Toowoomba Region blooming beautiful flowers as part of this year’s Carnival of Flowers festival.
Long time Oakey residents Wayne and Narelle Schick are seasoned professionals who have secured many wins over the years in the Regional section of the annual Carnival Garden Competition.
This year the pair took home a whopping five titles for their efforts: Regional Grand Champion, Regional Sustainable Garden Winner, Regional Large Residential Winner, Regional Back Garden Winner and third place for Regional Small Space.
Wayne and Narelle have lived in Oakey for 37 years and have entered the competition almost every year.
“We’ve at least entered into the competition 28 out of those 37 years,” Wayne said.
“And we have placed nearly every year we entered the competition.
The couple has been declared Grand Champion before as well as Reserve Grand Champion.
“We got our awards at a presentation ceremony last Wednesday [21st September].”
Narelle explained how there is a regional competition and a city competition,
with the regional competition including all the towns outside of Toowoomba City.
“The regional competition stretches from towns like Oakey to Yarraman to Pittsworth and many many others,” she said.
“We get judged on the health of the garden, the variety of plants and flowers, how it’s displayed and the over all design and lay out of the garden.”
Despite Wayne and Narelle’s garden being the only entrant from Oakey, they managed to score big time.
Their garden, which was open to the public from Friday 16th September up until last Sunday 25th September, garnered quite the crowd.
“The people visiting the garden has been constant,” Wayne said.
“We have had our camping chairs set up and greeting visitors who have travelled from all across the region to visit our garden and walk around and take a look.”
