The results from this year’s Flower Count are in and the City of Colwood managed to claim the title of Bloomingest City for the third year in a row with more than 13.43 billion blooms counted. The next closest municipality was North Saanich, with more than 4.76 billion blooms counted.
Mayor Carol Hamilton said the Flower Count is a fun community event and Colwood is proud to hold the title.
She noted that even though it is largely a local event, the Flower Count drew world-wide attention with roughly 30 other countries interacting with the event and taking notice of the enviable location we live in.
The 41st annual Flower Count ran from March 3 to 9, asking residents to get out and count the blooms in their community. The results of those efforts were released earlier this week.
The 2016 total count came to more than 25.86 billion blooms, with school counts accounting for about 50 per cent of that.
Hamilton attributes some of Colwood’s success to the students at Ecole John Stubbs Memorial. Led by teacher Matthew Barker, those students alone tallied more than 6.78 billion blooms for Colwood. Hamilton thanked the school for their dedication.
This year’s total outshines last year’s total count of a little more than 17.25 billion. In fact, this year’s count was the largest on record, with the next best year being back in 2010, when more than 21.69 billion blooms were counted.
katie@goldstreamgazette.com