After you pay the modest admission fee of $1, one of the first people you are likely to see at the Outram Flower Show is Marlene Barron, selling raffle tickets.
Like all the workers at the annual show - an Outram fixture for decades - Marlene is a volunteer, who happily gives her time to the event.
In the past, she has won awards for her potted plants, but she decided not to enter this year as health issues made it difficult.
Although she claims that when she moved to her Mosgiel home four years ago she reduced the number of pots, Marlene has no lack of container-grown plants, from orchids to geraniums and shrubs.
In just four years, the garden has been transformed from a barren patch to Barron's patch.
"What garden was here had weedmat on it, which I think makes the soil sour, and bark chips," Marlene said.
There were two kowhai trees, a rhododendron and a camellia, all of which were retained, as was an old wisteria.
"The first thing was to bag up all the bark chips and take up the weedmat. I couldn't wait to get rid of it."
Her late husband, Jim, rotary-hoed areas to become garden and widened an existing bed down one side.
Then came planting. Marlene had brought "a few things" from their previous garden, also in Mosgiel, but had to leave behind many roses, including 100 David Austin varieties.
With a smaller section, most of the roses she now grows are climbers, including the popular red Dublin Bay, but she has found space for David Austin's Golden Celebration, Iceberg, Brilliant Pink Iceberg and Burgundy Iceberg, as well Lili Marlene, which she "had to have" for its name.
Climbers are useful to screen a block wall and corrugated-iron fences on the boundaries, and one of the most eye-catching is a Chilean coral vine (Berberidopsis corallina), which looks delicate but is actually quite hardy.
Another technique Marlene has used for the block wall is to paint cream the portion facing a deck and use it to display a perennial antirrhinum (Asarina procumbens). With its furry green leaves and lemon-yellow snapdragon flowers, it is one of numerous less-usual plants in Marlene's garden.
Even more exciting, though, "is a pink-flowered one which I rescued".
"It arrived from our other house in a pot and so did a clematis, which is quite amazing," she said.
Below the climbers, she has planted lower-growing shrubs, including what she calls a pink pansy tree, Cercis chinensis Avondale, or Chinese redbud, which flowers profusely in spring on bare branches.
Edging the back lawn are beds of bulbs and perennials.
There are delphiniums for height, penstemons, gladioli, Salvia patens, alstroemerias and a dozen others.
In one spot, an asparagus plant has appeared, possibly a survivor from years ago when this part of Mosgiel was used for market gardening.
A delightful arrangement of five different areas that makes the most of the section enables Marlene to grow a wide variety of plants.
Many are unobtainable at garden centres and Marlene says she bought some of the most interesting ones at the Outram Flower Show.
It sounds like a good reason to head for the show next Friday.
SHOW TIME
The Outram Flower Show will be held at the Outram Church Hall, Holyhead St, Outram, next Friday, February 18.
The show is open to the public from 2pm until 7pm and admission is $1. Afternoon tea costs $2 and there will be a market table and raffles. Artwork by Outram School pupils will be on display.
Anyone can enter the show. Simply take along flowers and/or vegetables on Thursday, February 17, between 7pm and 9pm, or on Friday, February 18, between 8am and 10am. Entry is $1 per exhibitor, regardless of how many classes are entered.
Schedules are available from Mitchell's Family Food Centre, in Outram, but if you do not have a schedule, show officials will tell you which classes to enter.
