Burnham Nurseries Ltd, Newton Abbot, swept the board by picking up four awards at the weekend at the Royal Horticultural Society's London Orchid Show.

It's colourful display of orchids impressed the judges, who awarded a gold medal to the two-person team of nursery owner Sara Rittershausen and nursery manager Arthur Bell for the exhibit, one of only two awarded at this year's show.

Arthur said: 'We put an enormous amount of effort into the display this year to make sure we did a really good job with some quality plants and made sure the finishing was perfect, we are delighted with our gold medal this year.'

One particular orchid, an unusual species from India called coelogyne multiflora, was put before the orchid judging committee for individual apraisal and was awarded two certificates: a botanical certificate which will be allocated to the actual species as a whole for an unusual orchid not seen by the committee before, plus a certificate of cultural commendation for the excellence in growing the large specimen to such a high standard.

The plant has six flower stems with around 550 flowers.

The nursery's head grower Philip Valentine said: 'It's a challenge to flower this orchid so well so I am really pleased that it performed at the right time to be judged and to get the awards.'

Sara also collected a Long Service Medal from the RHS which was awarded to her father Brian for 40 years of service on the RHS Orchid Committee.

The award had been arranged last summer but Brian had been too unwell to travel to London to collect it. He died in September and so never actually received his award.

'I had told him he was to be awarded this medal and he was so pleased and appreciative that he had been acknowledged by the RHS. It was just sad that he never got to see it,' said Sara.