A NOVICE gardener from Moylegrove is celebrating a surprise win in a competition on S4C to find Wales’s best gardens.

The ‘Wales’s Best Gardens’ competition was launched on Garddio a Mwy in May – and Heledd Evans – who only took up gardening during lockdown –was announced as winner of the young gardener category on Monday night.

Judge Adam Jones praised Heledd for her ‘experimental spirit, willingness to learn and the quality of her crops’.

“It’s been a really strange feeling to win,” she said. “It was a shock because things aren’t as tidy as I’d like them and things haven’t been growing as I would want them to.

“It just goes to show, it’s not about growing the perfect produce – at the end of the day it’s about the process, the work and enjoying experimenting.”

Rhian Bambrey, of Lampeter, won the award for best vegetable garden.

“It’s just this year that I started it,” she said Rhian. “Before this it was just grass.

“It feels so nice to go out and pick your own veg from the garden, take them into the kitchen and they’re fresh. They taste better than anything you get in a shop.”

“I can’t believe that I’ve won the best vegetable garden award,” she added. “It was worth every second of the hard work throughout the year and I’m looking forward to next year now.”