A free family fun day including face painting, owl pellet dissections, and an appearance from the Duthie Park fairy is being held on Monday, September 9 as part of the celebrations for the Keep Scotland Beautiful annual awards ceremony in Aberdeen.
The family event being held in Duthie Park from 10am to 2pm also includes Spike the Talking Cactus, origami, self-guided tours, photo selfie props, stalls, and music from Aberdeen Music Service’s String Ensemble and Aberdeen Rock Choir.
Keep Scotland Beautiful entrants from around the country will be in Aberdeen on Monday, September 9 for the prestigious Beautiful Scotland event and the free family fun day has been organised as a ‘thank you’ for residents and community groups in recognition of the part that the public play in ensuring parks, green spaces, and gardens across the city are kept blooming.
The Lord Provost of Aberdeen Dr David Cameron, who is official host of the event, said: “Aberdeen has a long and prestigious history in the Beautiful Scotland and Britain in Bloom competitions so it’s fantastic to welcome entrants from all over the country.
“Aberdeen’s entry is very much a joint effort with community partners, volunteers and Friends groups so it is good we can give back and say ‘thanks’ with the free family fun day.
Event information
“Our staff and the community groups have done a wonderful job of ensuring our parks and green spaces are looking great so we hope everyone – including entrants here for the Beautiful Scotland competition and residents for the family fun day - have a good time on Monday.”
Keep Scotland Beautiful organises the top gardening competition Beautiful Scotland for councils and other community organisations across the country. Major winners from regional competitions including Beautiful Scotland are then put forward for the UK-wide finals Britain in Bloom.
The city has won a medal in either Britain in Bloom or Beautiful Scotland every year since 2008 and has been award-winning in the competitions since 1964.
In 2023, 2022, and 2021, Aberdeen won gold in the ‘City’ category in Beautiful Scotland and was also crowned Overall Joint First in 2022. In 2020, Aberdeen was a finalist for Champion of Champions award in Britain in Bloom but the competition was cancelled due to the pandemic.
The KSB awards ceremony comes after competition judges were in the city last month as part of their deliberations. Judges Liz Stewart and Gregor McGillivray started their visit at the community garden at the Duthie Park Ranger Station speaking with community groups and organisations from around the city followed by a tour of the David Welch Winter Gardens.
Other places the judges visited on their tour included the schoolchildren-designed flower beds on Great Southern Road, Victoria and Westburn Parks, through Old Aberdeen, and finishing at Seaton Park.