Ken Bacon and myself judged the National this year. It was interesting to judge: there were few really good prims, probably because of the weather, the 300s continued to be under-represented but there were some good 200s. Above all, there were some awesome spikes in the bigger sizes. Twisted tops were a feature of some exhibits, giving the impression that staking had been left a little late.
Best 500 was this beefy Of Singular Beauty from Mick Jones. It had apparently been in a cooler for a week, but it held well at least until the end of the judging and deserved the award. There were some good samples of this cultivar at the show.
Grand Champion was Nigel's August Days. It was a very close run thing between this and Nigel's Babsbill, another yellow with fabulous form that was just a little young.
Best 300 was this Cream of the Crop which the camera has decided should be yellow when it isn't.
Best 200 was this Psolum. It had some faults but still beat the opposition.
Best British was this Mac from Graham Anderson. He had some excellent spikes at the show and deserved to be among the awards.
Best Primulinus was a real headache for the judges. In the end we went for the middle one of these three Marina below by Trevor Fawcett.
The Best Novice went to Len with this very clean and well-grown Rotary. His other spikes were also very good.
This is the Babsbill which was also in contention for Grand Champion.
Graham Anderson produced a very fine exhibit with these six George's Choice. It was very nearly best exhibit but the back left spike was rather under flowered. An impressive set of spikes.
The three 200s below were another very good exhibit: two Petite and one Black Lash from Nigel.
In the seedling section, this new yellow from Trevor was close to winning
but in the end the award went to a new primulinus whose colours don't show up well in this photo.
Another very impressive spike was this Legacy from Colin Parkes. I hope to see more of this in the future.
In the 200s both Mick Jones and Peter Forrow exhibited a spike of Lauren, a pretty flower with potential.
As you would expect, there were plenty of spikes of Of Singular Beauty and these were better in my opinion than those I saw at other shows this year.
Graham Anderson's exhibit in the Blake was extremely good and very close to the winning three by Nigel.
Colin Parkes produced a great exhibit with these four.
Mac from Graham Anderson certainly has the wow factor and it is good to see very good spikes in this colour on the bench.
I would say this National produced better spikes than last year's and the public had plenty to look at. Thanks to Poynton Show for accommodating the BGS National and thanks to all the exhibitors who made the judges' job a pleasure.
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