The St Peter Chanel Catholic Primary School teacher says she and her brother come from a long line of green thumbs and cooks.
“Our grandfather was head gardener at Clyde Railway Yards for many years, our parents always kept roses and our great aunt had an award-winning bakery in the Eastern Suburbs,” Robyn said.
Exhibiting for the last 25 years, they won five cooking awards with Gregory scoring highly commended for his macaroons and sultana cake and third place for his marble cake and Robyn came second in plain scones and coconut macaroons, with all of her fruit cakes making it to the finals.
In the fruit and vegetable category, they got eight firsts, seven seconds and six thirds, winning for their squash, marrow, zucchini, capsicum, chillies, radishes, onion, potato, rhubarb and lettuce.
But it was for the roses that they scored the championships, winning Miniflora Champion Rose for ‘Troy’ and Champion Australian Bred as well as Champion Florabunda for ‘Our Amanda’.
“Both these roses are bred by a Maitland couple who have encouraged me to start breeding my own which I have so that will be interesting next year,” Robyn said.
“It was a fantastic year for us considering we lost 75 per cent of veg in the rains before the Show.”
This year also saw two of Robyn’s students and a former student achieving success, with one coming third place in photography, her brother winning first place in the succulent garden category and another, who is now in Year 8, being named Champion and Supreme Champion of all Juniors for cacti and succulents.
“Another two students who entered in the art category, got certificates of merit,” Robyn added.
