Sunny sunflowers - a competition to remember! | News from Oakwood Court

This summer saw one of the hottest competitions grow between all four of our care homes...

When the suggestion of a sunflower competition came from Amanda Hodge, Director of Housing and Care, residents and staff jumped at the chance to get involved and speedily got to work planting sunflower seeds in their 'grow your own kit'. 

Before we knew it, weekly measurements were being recorded and the competition was heating up.

Residents shared their pleasure in getting their hands dirty, digging the soil and planting something that was soon to become a spectacular scene in their garden. It conjured up many happy memories of time spent nurturing flowers and vegetables in their own gardens. 

This year has been one of the most challenging for residents and our care teams, and the sunflower project has brought a smile to people's faces. It strengthened our team spirit as everyone rallied round to water, feed and measure the sunflowers, sharing the same goal - to win the competition and have lots of fun along the way! No doubt there was some tuneful singing to the sunflowers to help them grow - residents pulled out all the stops to make theirs the winner!

By the end of the summer it became a close competition between sunflowers at Oakwood Court care home in Haywards Heath and Saxonwood care home in Battle. All four homes had done extremely well in tending to their flowers, and on judging day Saxonwood care home were crowned the winners with sunflowers a whopping 2.9 metres tall! They were closely followed by Oakwood Court's sunflower measuring 2.3 metres.

   

Oakwood Court's sunflowers

Saxonwood's sunflowers

Amanda recently visited Saxonwood to award their prize of a sunflower ornament for their garden which was received by Sigita, Saxonwood Care Home Manager and Rosemary a wonderful resident who lives at the home.

We are so happy to have won such a beautiful prize, our Sunflowers at Saxonwood Care Home grew to a shocking size and our residents were very proud of them. We have placed our new beautiful sunflower where ours once stood, so now our residents can still enjoy sunflowers from the warmth of the lounge all year long. Thank you.

   

Well done to all residents and care teams who were involved in this project - it most definitely helped to brighten everyone's summer!

Here are a selection of photos from all of our care homes: