Abbotsford has been awarded a “5 Bloom Community” rating two years in a row, which qualified the city to enter the national competition. (Abbotsford News photo)

Abbotsford has been awarded a “5 Bloom Community” rating two years in a row, which qualified the city to enter the national competition. (Abbotsford News photo)

Five blooms for Abbotsford in national competition

Pencil Patch program gets special mention from judges

  • Oct. 8, 2019 12:00 a.m.

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.”

Abbotsford News