Flower enthusiasts best start tallying: the 45th annual Flower Count is back.
The Greater Victoria tradition welcomes communities to count their blooms this week as part of a friendly competition to discover the “bloomingest” community in the region.
Last year the City of Victoria won with a striking 44 billion blooms, dethroning the longtime champion of Colwood.
“It is about the community coming together, as well as tradition in Greater Victoria. We certainly aren’t shy about sharing our climactic advantage with our friends around Canada,” said Paul Nursey, CEO of Destination Greater Victoria. “It gives us a chance to, shall we say, poke them a little bit, expressing how much we enjoy living here and perhaps not living there.”
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From March 4 to 11 communities are asked to tally flowers in their neighbourhoods and submit the counts online. To make things a bit easier, a small tree full of blossoms equals 250,000 blossoms, a mid-sized heather bush as 1,000 blossoms and trees fully in bloom count for 750,000 blossoms.
School kids are also encouraged to get involved, with Grade 4 and 5 students asked to submit entries for a chance for the winning class to get a trip by L.A. Limousines to the Butchart Gardens. Last year’s winner was Cordova Bay Elementary with a count of 13 billion blooms.
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“Flowers are iconic to the City of Victoria and to our region,” said acting Victoria Mayor Jeremy Loveday. “I think the Victoria flower count is a fun way to celebrate that.”
This year people can also participate on Instagram by tagging garden and floral posts with #FlowerCount to get a chance to win admission for two to the Butchart Gardens, as well as an assortment of flower seeds and afternoon tea for two.
The contest runs from 8 a.m. on March 4 to March 11 at 5 p.m. Submissions can be made online at flowercount.com.