Residents and the teams at Athena Care Homes have been very busy recently with the recent Athena in Bloom competition!
All of the Athena Care Homes teams and residents have been working ahead of the judging of our annual Athena in Bloom competition. This competition sees homes compete against one another for titles including ‘Best Sustainability Initiative’ and ‘Best Sensory Garden’.
After our successful gardening day back in March, where the Central and Regional Team got involved in helping to transform our homes gardens in time for the summer; many of our homes’ gardens had one final overhaul to ensure their efforts were in with a chance of taking a prize in one of the covetable Athena in Bloom categories.
The Athena in Bloom Spade, which currently is displayed in pride of place in the Aria Court Care Home Café, is what all of our homes are competing for.
As a glimpse of some of the submissions, the team at Aria Court’s entry for the Best First Impressions category included the transformation of their entryway roundabout. Using recycled tyres and donated flowers from local Volmary Nursery. They made a beautiful flower arrangement, which aligns with the Athena mission to reduce our environmental impact. Taking pride of place in the centre of the display is a magnolia tree, gifted to the home by a relative of on of our residents and a memorial, who was a regular at Aria Courts Happy Potters Gardening Club!
Goodwins Hall residents meanwhile, enjoyed an Al Fresco Lunch in the Garden. This garden party had a wonderful Wimbledon theme and included the ever-famous Wimbledon snack of strawberries and cream and a very special guest!
At Avocet Court, the whole team and residents have rallied together to make changes to the gardens.
This year the team has sought to build relationships with local partners. This has included inviting the neighbouring allotments to contribute ideas and time developing the gardens, but the stand out project involved Northgate Secondary School in Ipswich.
The school’s Design and Technology club worked to create 10 fantastic bird boxes with a picture of an avocet and the words Avocet Court stencilled onto the wood. These boxes are the start of a partnership which will include visits from the school’s drama, music and other departments. The items themselves will form a key part of the ‘Avocet trail’ – a mapped route around our gardens which will showcase the flora and fauna of the site to our residents, their loved ones and our other visitors.
We rounded up our Athena in Bloom competition on September 4th with our judging presentation for each category, plus the crowning of the overall winner and owner of the Athena in Bloom Spade award!
We couldn’t be more proud of the overall winners – Avocet Court – for their efforts in our annual competition, as they really went above and beyond to transform their space into somewhere that is perfect for not only residents to spend time in, but also friends, family and the team!
