WHILE most of her contemporaries are happy to put their feet up and relax, 94-year-old Victoria Baker spends her days in a rather more active fashion.

The remarkable nonagenarian is living proof you don’t have to have hours spare to bring a riot of colour to your surroundings.

A keen gardener since childhood, Mrs Baker is entering her balcony in Girdlestone Road, Headington and its colourful hanging baskets in this year’s Oxford in Bloom contest, which is supported by the Oxford Mail.

Despite limited mobility due to her age, the great-grandmother cares for the plants so well that she has scooped prizes in the ten years she has been taking part.

She said: “It’s difficult for me now but I manage it and I do Oxford in Bloom every year. I just love it and I love gardening. I can’t do as much as I used to, because I am so infirm, but I can keep it tidy.”

Her hanging baskets and balcony containers are filled with a riot of colourfuil bedding plants, including geraniums., petunias and trailing lobelia.

Mrs Baker said she planted flowers that would bloom without too much encouragement, and said most of her efforts involved making sure she watered the plants every day.

She said: “I’m not the kind of gardener who worries about everything, I just like to make it look nice for people to look at and for myself.”

She found a love of all things horticultural while helping her parents with a smallholding in Crescent Road.

After retiring from the printing department at Oxfordshire County Council, Mrs Baker volunteered to take on two family allotments and spent 18 years tending to them.

She said: “I think the gardens in Oxford are better now than they used to be.

“You rarely see one that is absolutely overgrown”

Oxford Mail deputy editor Sara Taylor said: “It’s lovely to hear from inspirational people such as Mrs Baker who have decades of experience in making the best of their gardens.

“Hopefully she will spur on the young families of today to get their hands dirty and get planting so the city continues to bloom in the future.”

School entries for this year’s Oxford in Bloom close on Saturday, July 2. Others have until Sunday, July 10, using the form printed in the Oxford Mail.