By Eraina Hooyer
Staff Reporter
Beautiful yards and gardens in Ponoka and Ponoka County were up against the best in this year’s Landscaping and Vegetable Garden Competition as part of the Ponoka County Fair.
The competition, hosted by the Ponoka Agricultural Society, was judged according to a point system and anyone could enter their treasured garden, yard or water garden.
Janet Hatala was the convener for the competition and is an avid gardener herself. Hatala has received recognition from the Ponoka Ag Society’s previous competitions many times before for her landscaped yard.
Hatala believes that the competition is a fun contest for the community and was impressed with the number of attractive yards in Ponoka and area.
“When you drive around there are a lot of beautiful yards and gardens,” said Hatala. “A lot of people do a lot of work to make their yard look great.”
For the Landscaping and Vegetable Garden Competition there were six categories a person or family could sign up for including Rural Gardens, Urban Gardens, Rural Yards, Urban Yards, Rural Water Gardens or Ponds and Urban Water Gardens or Ponds.
The winners in the Rural Garden category was Beatrix Stamm with first place and second place was awarded to Brian and Debbie Peterson. There were no entries for the Urban Garden class.
For Rural Yards, Steve and Jennie Rose claimed first place followed by Doug and Carol Heymeyer.
In town, for Urban Yards, Kim Haggkvist was awarded first place and Barb Noel placed second.
First place for the best Rural Water Gardens or Ponds went to Eric Ostergaard and second place was taken by Murray McWade.
There was not a first place winner for the Urban Water Garden or Ponds category and Barb Noel took home second place.
Hatala was pleased with the participation of all the participants and knew that it was a tough decision for the person judging.
“The judge had a difficult time choosing the winners, it was a tough job,” she said. “The judging was based on a point system and some of the gardens and yards entered were really close, some were just a point away.”
All together there were 21 entries with seven for the Rural Garden, three for Urban Gardens, eight for Rural Yards, two for Rural Water Gardens or Ponds and one for Urban Water Garden.
Hatala also says that the Ag Society may possibly be working with the people that entered on giving tours of the their gardens and yards in the near future so that those interested can view the landscaped properties.
“We are hopefully looking to give tours of these places. We would like to get something like that organized,” she said. “There are people that come up to us and tell us they would be interested to see the yards, so the interest is definitely there.”
There will be pictures of the yards and gardens displayed at the Ponoka Culture and Recreation Complex on Aug. 9 for the interested public to view.
The prizes for the winners will be also be awarded at the arena beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 9.