FIVE thousand green fingered shoppers packed Tavistock?s pannier market on Sunday and Monday to enjoy the town?s first ever garden festival. The town was positively blooming as local enthusiasts and tourists flocked to the festival to buy everything from herbs to garden machinery and listen to talks and demonstrations by the area?s experts. ?Everywhere you looked people were loaded with bagfuls of plants and flowers,? said one of the festival organisers, deputy town clerk Rosie Keyhoe. ?All the plants were in tip-top condition and there were many unusual varieties. ?The town council?s aim was to achieve a point to people visiting Tavistock on the Bank Holiday weekend and we achieved that mega time ? the place was really buzzing.? Rosie said the weather could not have been better, but with an undercover venue it would not have mattered had it been raining. The festival will be repeated next year at the same time and in the same place but it may expand to include other venues in the town in the future. Stallholders are already booking a spot and gardeners are writing the date in their diaries. Rosie added: ?I would like to give a big thank you to Tim Miller from the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens, Matt Bishop from the Garden House and the ladies from the Tavistock Flower Club for their talks and demonstrations which were a real hit.?