The last thing Karla Hayward expected was to win the top prize for her garden when she entered the Garden Club of Bermuda's Bermuda in Bloom contest.

But win she did, taking home the Garden Club of Bermuda Award for the Best Garden of 2003.

"No one was more surprised than me, really. Bermuda has such good gardeners and they are all concentrated in the Garden Club, so you feel a little intimidated going in," said the Government Archivist whose award winning garden is at her home on Blockade Alley, just behind the Somers Gardens in St. George's.

"It's nice to have a pat on the back, isn't it, but I really do it for my own satisfaction and for visitors coming by. During the weekend there are several tours a day coming by."

One requirement for those entering the contest was that their garden had to be visible from a public or estate road.

"The garden is in the town of St. George's which is nice because all the tour guides come past there," said Ms Hayward.

"My sister (Judy Hayward) did a walking guide of the small gardens in St. George's for This Week in Bermuda and of course my garden is on the tour. It starts in Somers Garden and my house is directly across from the back entrance of the garden.

"It's a formal garden and I developed it in keeping with the house which is a Georgian house built by Dr. George Forbes in the 1740s."

Ms Hayward admits she also got some inspiration from the lovely Somers Garden next door which has long been one of the most tranquil settings in St. George's.

"It's a Victorian garden and my garden is certainly on an English style, laid out formally, but I wouldn't call it Victorian," she explained.

"Dr. Forbes apparently had a garden there in the 18th Century and I feel like I have rediscovered it in a way. I have been working on it for a number of years. I moved into the house nine years ago.

"It takes time for planting to mature. It's a walled garden so it's protected. The soil is good and it's really been a joy to work with. I spend maybe two hours in the garden a week, but when I was building it up it was a lot more."

Ms Hayward admits the heat will keep her out of the garden during the summer months, but she will get the garden ready in the spring.

"I'll do top dressing, get manure in and plough it up and put in the bedding plants," she explained.

"Otherwise it is permanent planting and maintains itself. The garden is lovely, particularly in the spring. It's a spring garden. In the summer it is too hot.

"This week's rain has beaten it down a lot but it will spring back. I'll tidy it up and probably put some things in for the summer. It's got form and the judges told me that's what they were looking at. It's the structure and design rather than just the flowers themselves, although obviously that contributed."

Retired couple Owen and Pamela Darrell of Shaw Wood Park in Spanish Point were bronze certificate award winners for their colourful driveway leading up to their home. They also received a special award gift voucher for beautifying the area which the judges considered to be "exceptional as it was a difficult site".

The judges took into consideration it was a driveway on a steep slope which most people would not bother to plant in such a way.

"More often we just see tarmac with the wild vegetation trimmed back," said the judges, describing it as "very public spirited and courageous gardening".

Said Mr. Darrell: "The driveway was put in in 1956, it was just a bare driveway and we have been working on it ever since. At first we had no gardener but have had a gardener once a week for several years."

Mr. Darrell gives much of the credit to his gardener Humberto Medeiros.

"All the planting is mine and he put in some of the Coleus himself," said Mr. Darrell who estimates there are more than a dozen different types of flower in his driveway.

Sometimes when he is tending to the garden people will drop by and admire and once they saw a photographer putting up his tripod and getting ready to take pictures.

"It's an all year round garden, so there is always something here," said Mr. Darrell who has owned the property since the 1950s.

"It was quite a pleasant surprise to win something. If I'm working on it when people pass by they would often say `I love your garden'."

Mr. Darrell feels the requirement that the garden must be visible from the road is a good idea as it encourages other people to plant gardens where it can be seen.