Oakham

Chris Bavin heads to the historic market town of Oakham in Rutland where the Bloomers are having to cope with major roadworks around the town. They can't avoid them, so the team has decided to embrace the construction with a roadworks-themed Bloom entry. They aim to fill their windows with planted-up traffic cones and hard hats. At the showcase library gardens, they hope to fill the beds with traffic light-coloured blooms. Finally, they're engaging the wider community to produce bespoke planters to green up the centre. But this community knows all too well that things can go wrong at any time - last year they were hit with a scandal involving slugs that threatened to scupper the whole competition.