I read the posting about Welsh Councils giving prizes for Best Gardens. Our local Council in Clackmannanshire has been doing that for fifty years or so, with a small gap when they stopped the competition for a few years. There is quite a competative air here and people do their best to win. In recent years the competition has been opened to private house owners too - probably because so many of the locals now own their (ex)council houses.
The prize giving is done in the local Town Hall early September.
Wish more people would enter and keep their areas beautiful!