AN elderly couple have scooped a top gardening award, after brightening up their community with dazzling plants and flowers.

Leslie and Gladys Thompson, both 91, who live off Stockton Lane, were shocked to discover they had won "garden of the year" in the Heworth area, after neighbours put their name forward to council bosses.

The couple, who will have been married for 69 years next month, took up gardening on their retirement from Nestl Rowntree, where they worked in the fruit gum section.

Their garden includes an impressive display of petunias, orange marigolds and lilies, and hundreds of eye-catching colours are on display.

Mr Thompson said: "We just like to make the garden look nice for the public.

"The garden has all our own seeds and we grow our own plants.

"The local people entered us - we had no idea - and we would really like to thank them for that."

Mrs Thompson said: "The children stop to look at our garden on their way to school. People even stop their cars to take photos.

"We were dumbfounded by the award. We didn't expect anything like that. There are more then 100 varieties of colour in just one border in the garden, and there isn't another one like it round here. That's what people tell us, anyway."

The Thompsons, who have one son and four grandchildren, were presented with their certificate by the Lord Mayor of York, Coun Janet Greenwood.

Mrs Thompson said: "It's hard work, but it keeps us going."

Updated: 09:01 Saturday, September 10, 2005