£2,500 anniversary prize from garden and greenhouse attraction

One lucky garden and greenhouse enthusiast has walked away with a £2,500 prize for visiting a popular Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) site.

Zoe Palmer-Smith won the RHS Garden Harlow Carr Diamond Quest, which was held to mark the site’s diamond (60th) anniversary.

To be in with a chance of winning the beautiful half-carat, brilliant cut diamond prize, visitors had to follow a number of clues before getting to a particular part of the site.

The string of clues eventually led to the Geoffrey Smith memorial statue along Streamside, with 318 of the 766 entrants successfully negotiating their way there.

A draw was then carried out in front of Harlow Carr’s staff on November 29th, with head of the site Liz Thwaite and curator Elizabeth Balmforth choosing Ms Palmer-Smith’s name at random from the correct entrants.

"The diamond is a stunning half-carat brilliant cut with a Gemological Institute of America certificate. The colour of the stone is G and the clarity is VS2 – a truly beautiful stone," explained jewellery designer Andrew Geoghegan, who provided the prize.

In other news, RHS Lindley is this week hosting experts such as Bunny Guinness and Chris Beardshaw for the recording of a popular BBC gardening programme.