Winning Gardeners' World contest 'overwhelming'

The winner of a BBC Gardeners' World Magazine competition to find the best overall garden has described winning the award with her allotment as "completely overwhelming".

Nadine Mitschunas, 47, was crowned the winner of the publication's 10th anniversary edition of its Gardens of the Year contest for her allotment in Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

"I thought I didn't really have a chance, because I don't even have a proper garden," she told the BBC. "I don't have a garden at home, so I actually made my allotment into my garden."

Kevin Smith, the magazine's editorial director, said: "To put this much passion and hard work into a shared space says everything, with wildlife at the very heart of it."

Nadine's space at Fir Tree Allotments originally won in 2021, which put her in the running for the best-of-the-best shortlist in the latest edition against all the other past winners.

Since then, the garden has grown, and now spans three adjoining allotment plots and a shared space wildflower meadow.

Nadine said she was inspired by the naturalistic plant movement, and gardeners like Piet Oudolf and James Hitchmough.

The result is a mix of flowers and grasses, and an emphasis on native plants and fruit trees, to make something "ecologically sustainable", which she describes as a blend of a "cottage garden and a forest garden".

Thousands of readers enter their gardens into the competition each year.

Nadine claimed the ultimate winner's title from a shortlist of 20 finalists drawn from every year of the competition's 10-year history.

The judges included Gardeners' World presenter Arit Anderson, author Ann-Marie Powell, and presenter Ashley Edwards.

They described Nadine's garden as a thriving ecosystem for wildlife and fellow gardeners, calling it a "garden for the future".

"My allotment is completely out of the ordinary I would say, otherwise I wouldn't have had a chance in this competition," Nadine admitted.

"The standards were extremely high because most of the others are proper house gardens.

"That was one difficult thing to beat because many people just look down a bit on allotments... it still sounds quite amazing that I actually won the whole thing."

Nadine discovered her love of plants when she was 20.

"I love the nurturing of it, raising plants from seed," she said.

"Just putting a seed in the ground and then helping the little plant to grow and then see it flower and thrive."

She added: "It's just such an immersive hobby, really, it completely consumes you once you start.

"I can't imagine anything better than gardening, and it's completely relaxing, makes me happy, makes my life happy.

"So yeah, it's the best thing I could do with my life."