THE 2012 Malvern Spring Gardening Show will go down as the one that beat the weather.

While many other outdoor-based attractions have fallen foul of the recent heavy rains, the four-day event on the Three Counties Showground bit the bullet, survived a few downpours on Thursday’s opening day and emerged into a sunny weekend with crowds thronging the aisles. Brisk winds and an abundance of straw dried out the soggy areas and although many of the 90,000 visitors arrived prepared for the worst, wellingtons and umbrellas were, for the most part, confined to car boots.

“It is a great credit to everyone concerned that we are here,” said Nick Vincent, chief executive of the Three Counties Agricultural Society, which co-organises the event with the Royal Horticultural Society.

“In a spring when there have been major cancellations of other shows, to be able to go ahead as we have with a full programme is a considerable achievement.”

It was the first time the venue’s new £1.5 million conference and exhibition centre had been used to the full. Although partly opened for last year’s Malvern Autumn Show, the Spring Gardening Show saw the debut of the new catering facilities and new exhibition hall, which is the largest in the South Midlands.

The show also saw the unveiling on the showground of the stone bottle fountain, the working statue which was an iconic feature outside the main entrance of the Malvern spring water bottling plant in Colwall.

Created by Worcester sculptor Darren Bennett for Coca-Cola Enterprises, which took over the plant from Schweppes in 1987, there were fears the York stone masterpiece might disappear after the site closed in 2010. However, the Friends of Malvern Springs and Wells had the two-and-a-half tonne fountain removed and kept safe until the society offered it a permanent home on the showground.

It was officially introduced to the public in a permanent rustic show garden designed by Paul Taylor, of Alchemy Gardens of Storridge.

Winner of the best new garden gadget at the show was an automatic soil and rubble sieve, designed and developed by landscape gardener Robin Higgins, of Welland, together with blacksmith and wrought-iron artist Dave Preston, of Ledbury.

“I was working on a garden in Malvern and having real problems sifting the good quality soil from the rocks,” Mr Higgins said. “So I sat down with Dave and in 10 days we had come up with this product.”

Based on a concrete mixer design, the terra tumbler means quantities of soil can now be sieved on site rather than having to be sent away and returned later.