We started life under a different name back in 1998 as the St Marychurch and District Action Group.

Today, we Bay Blooms volunteers and helpers continue work to improve and enhance our community for the benefit of all by maintaining various local garden areas and green spaces.

The main areas we plant and care for are: The St Marychurch Precinct, The Millennium Copse, The Rose Garden, Babbacombe Downs Bug Life Flower Bed and The Abbey Corner flower bed which is situated at the side of Abbey School.

We are a friendly bunch who enjoy being outdoors and having a laugh along the way and, when time permits, gather together to have a coffee at one of the Precinct’s Cafés.

A number of us are experienced or amateur gardeners, but a similar number are practical souls who contribute expertise in other life skill areas and also bring that valuable tool, a willing pair of hands.

We are not employed by Torbay Council or any contractor and are not paid for our work. We plant, water and maintain all the planters and beds in the areas we care for and rely on donations and fund raising to enable us to continue to do this.

You will see our lime green hi-viz around any day, but mostly on Wednesday mornings you will find us working in either the Rose Garden (just a stone’s throw from Babbacombe Downs Cliff Railway Café) where we have created an oasis of calm and beauty, or in the Millennium Copse, a community inspired woodland, a wildlife and conservation area (situated directly off the St Marychurch Bypass opposite the Model Village car park) or in the heart of our community, the St Marychurch shopping precinct, maintaining the numerous floral planters.

We are part of the South West in Bloom family and every year enter their regional competition, where we face stiff challenges from groups across the whole of the South West, from the depths of Cornwall to North Somerset, Bristol, Bath and beyond. Britain in Bloom is no longer just about flowers and horticulture, judging also includes community involvement and environmental awareness, both of which we show with ease.

Babbacombe Bay Bloomers has achieved many South West in Bloom awards. In the four years, 2016 to 2019, we received the RHS Gold Award. In 2020, having followed Government Guidelines during the Covid19 period, were awarded a South West in Bloom Certificate of Excellence for our work during this difficult time. In 2021 and 2022 we again received a RHS Gold Award and in 2023 a RHS Gold and the Sargent Cup.

The Babbacombe Bay Bloomers Group, with the help of the local community and local traders, is keen to maintain that standard for many years to come.