Sustainable Home Gardens competition for 2022 launched |17 February 2022

Ms Larue

People interested to take part in the Sustainable Home Gardens competition for this year can start registering in the different categories and this will go on until March 14.

The theme for the competition this year is Sustainable Home Gardens. It is the second time that the competition is being organised and all the different categories remain the same as last year and these are – balcony, small gardens and large gardens.

Jeanette Larue, the director general for public education and community outreach division in the Ministry of Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, has said they want to improve on last year’s competition.

“We’ve identified our past mistakes and we want to improve on them. This year we are launching the competition earlier as last year it clashed a bit with the Christmas Tree Competition which we also intend to continue this year as well. So this is why we want to finish with one competition completely to avoid rushing into the other,” Ms Larue explained.

She also noted that they are also trying to rectify some issues that arose last year like there were some participants who wanted to include their verandah as part of their small garden something that we will discuss with them before deciding if they are to feature in the small garden category or if they want to feature in the balcony category.

Another issue that Ms Larue said they would further explain to the participants relates to water harvesting.

“We want to ensure that their water tanks are well covered to prevent mosquito breeding, that a filtering mesh is put in place to filter the water as well as where and how the water is being used,” Ms Larue explained.

Meanwhile the criteria to participate in the competition remain the same as last year and these are: quality, diversity of the plants, creativity, innovation as well as sustainable practices and their impact on the surrounding environment.

Ms Larue noted that after all participants would have registered before the end of March, members of the competition’s organising team will start visiting all the different gardens of the participants to confirm their category as well as to advise them as to what is missing from their garden so they can do all the necessary improvements to ensure they meet all the required criteria.

“We do not only focus on the most beautiful gardens but also on sustainable practices like composting, rain water harvesting, having a friendly pest management system which are all very important for participants when winners are being decided as these are aspects that the environment department has been calling on people to put in place at their homes over the years,” Ms Larue highlighted.  

Meanwhile people wanting to take part in the competition should contact numbers 2723997 or 2827096 or they can send an email to j.larue@env.gov.sc or c.clarisse@env.gov.sc so they can be registered.

Marie-Anne Lepathy