Last Friday, in the company of the mayor, Coun David Birkett, and Brendan Higgins from the sponsors, Amber Building management, I spent a fascinating day helping to judge the schools' entries for the Kendal Pride competition.

This was my second year at judging, so I was interested to see how last year's entries had changed, and to see some new competitors.

All the entries were good, with vegetables high on the agenda this year, together with colourful displays of bedding plants and perennials in pots and borders.

Standards were high, with children, teachers, support staff and parents all involved in the work.

At Stramongate School, two children are appointed head gardeners for the year, in charge of watering and care of the plants - an excellent profession for any aspiring gardener.

I was especially taken with the imaginative grounds at Brantfield Nursery School, where the children seem to be very much involved in the garden, through play and teaching.

After looking at the schools, we set off to judge the Environmental category, and quickly found ourselves in a little piece of paradise.

The garden of Mr and Mrs Ely is quite compact, no bigger than the average plot, but gardened meticulously as a wildlife haven.

Surrounded by mixed hedges, with shrubs on three sides to encourage birds (there were house and hedge sparrows busy all around us), the borders are planted with native perennials and annuals, to encourage bees, butterflies and other insects into the garden.

The centre of the lawn has been left as a wildflower area and the Elys have been gradually introducing new meadow plants each season to increase the diversity.

Three or four interconnecting pools edge the patio (we were greeted by the sight of a thrush bathing in one of them) with frogs in abundance, newly arrived newts and several different species of water plants.

The overall effect was quite charming, just as colourful and horticulturally interesting as other gardens but with the added bonus of a whole range of fauna to accompany the flora.

Mr and Mrs Ely's next project is to be a tiny bluebell wood, with woodland plants under a canopy of small trees and shrubs.

This small wildlife garden was a real eye-opener for me.

I have often thought that while it's easy to talk about gardening with the environment in mind when you have 30 acres of grounds to use, it must be much more difficult to make an attractive and presentable wildlife garden in a small area.

Now I've seen it done, and done brilliantly.

I may have to seriously rethink some of the plantings in my town garden at home.

Jobs for the gardener this week:

_ Summer prune wall-grown Japanese quince (Chaenomeles japonica), cutting back side shoots to two-three buds from the main framework.

_ Summer prune grape vines in a similar way, cutting two or three buds beyond the first bunch of grapes on each side shoot.

_ Keep up with grass cutting, but if the weather is dry raise the height of cut to prevent browning of the grass.