A WEYMOUTH florist has won a national begonia competition for the third year in a row.

Peter Read, 55, of Read P&M Florists in Dorchester Road, made it a hat-trick of championships for nine near perfect blooming plants in the National Begonia Society Show at King's Heath in Birmingham.

His prize-winning entries of six different varieties grow to around three feet high and the flowers are around seven inches in diameter with around 32 blooms on each plant.

Peter said the secret to successful gardening is attention to detail from when they start out as a tuber, through re-potting, staking and wiring until they reach full bloom.

But the trickiest part was transporting them 180 miles in the back of a hired Transit van.

Peter said: "The problem is you need nine pots to enter the competition and I could only just fit nine pots in the van, so if any of them were damaged I could not have participated.

"I spent six hours packing them with quilt and used about 24 rolls of tissue between the plants.

"I got there in the early hours of the morning and they didn't look good, but after three or four hours they settled down and I thought I had a good chance of winning."

Peter, who was born in Weymouth, has been interested in gardening since he was a boy when one of his relations took him to a local flower show.

He owns the florist with his son Mark but only started entering competitions seven years ago.

He said: "I'd been following Mark around in competitions since he was 12 years old so I thought I'd have a go myself.

"I entered a six-pot contest at novice level and ended up winning the whole thing so that encouraged me to continue."