GREEN-FINGERED volunteers have struck gold at a national competition.

East Lothian plant-lovers were among the winners at Scotland’s national gardening show at the Royal Highland showground at Ingliston.

The one-metre-square pallet garden competition was set up 15 years ago to encourage voluntary groups and schools to participate.

Entering for the first time, Tranent’s Blooming Belters won gold and first prize, highlighting how they have been reinvigorating their town centre with floral displays.

The garden featured a replica of a mine pithead with more than 20 types of ferns, as it was these plants that formed the coal which was associated with the town for so long.

By contrast, North Berwick in Bloom has been in every show for the past 15 years.

This year, its ‘Now the War is Over’ pallet demonstrated how wild flowers, including the well-known red poppies, had colonised the First World War battlefields by the spring of 1919.

The garden also acknowledged the contribution of horses, dogs and carrier pigeon to the British forces.

Miss Youngson’s P4C class at North Berwick’s Law Primary School took a gold with a garden linking flowers to music, with Burns’ red, red rose the centrepiece.

Rosmary Oberlander, retired from North Berwick in Bloom, gave the children a helping hand.

She said: “All the children in the class were involved – initially we talked through ideas and then they drew up their designs.

“Everyone decorated some cut-out musical notes and then helped either to decorate the keyboard poles or plant up some of the musical instruments which were donated to us.”

Law Primary’s nursery entered for the first time with a seaside theme which achieved silver gilt.

Meanwhile, three pupils from Knox Academy also attended the Royal Horticultural Society Gardening Scotland show.

The pupils planned, designed and created a sensory garden from scratch.

Karen Fraser, from the Haddington secondary school, said: “The young people used the theme of a sensory garden with particular emphasis on each of the five senses.

“After several hours’ work, we submitted our garden and awaited judging from the RHS judges and the general public.

“This was our first year entering and we were genuinely not expecting to be placed, but we had great fun creating our garden.

“We learned that we had been placed third, gaining a bronze statuette.”