WEIRD and wonderful flowers of all shapes and sizes helped make The Three Counties Spring Gardening Show the biggest and best yet.

In the show's massive floral marquee, strange looking carnivorous plants stood side by side with exotically blossomed clematis and incredible miniaturised bonsai trees.

Over Friday, Saturday and Sunday, some 88,000 visitors made their way to the Malvern showground to see the marquee plants, 600 gardening related stalls, crafts, foods and wines and impressive show gardens.

Three Counties spokesman Sharon Gilbert said: "We are absolutely thrilled, thrilled to have had record numbers (up 25 per cent from last year). I think it is a combination of the celebrity presence - we had virtually everybody in gardening here, the Gardeners World team, Charlie Dimmock, Diarmuid Gavin. I think that really helped."

The Friday night coverage of the show on BBC's Gardeners World also brought in a flood of bookings for tickets, jamming the switchboard until 1am on Saturday morning.

Two show gardens, by the Institute of Groundmanship and Rukba, took gold medals from the Royal Horticultural Society, demonstrating the continuing increase in standard of the Malvern show.

Ms Gilbert said: "There was a real buzz about the show and we had lovely weather. Overall the show gets better every year."

Young pupils from Hanley Swan Primary School were also in attendance, photographing plants and garden furniture as they gathered ideas for their new school garden.

After coming second to Kempsey Primary School in a Three Counties garden design competition, the youngsters were awarded a £2,000 cheque from TV's gardening maestro Diarmuid Gavin.

Headteacher Mary Pick said: "We are really thrilled to bits because we needed to do something with the grounds and the competition really captured the imagination of the children. They had caught programmes on TV and their designs were incredible, really imaginative."