Growing Great Places Together
Mahone Bay is a Communities in Bloom town. It's not just about a pot of petunias — it's about civic pride, community involvement, and the vitality that makes a small town feel alive.
A national program with a simple promise.
Communities in Bloom is a Canadian non-profit committed to fostering civic pride, environmental responsibility, and beautification through community involvement and the challenge of a national program. The motto says it best: Growing Great Places Together.
Towns enter the evaluated program and host a pair of judges who tour for a couple of days. They aren't looking just for pretty flowers — they're scoring how a community comes together to take care of itself.
Ten Mahone Bay groups, two visiting judges, 4 out of 5 Blooms.
In 2024, ten Mahone Bay groups collaborated to enter the evaluated program for the first time. Two CiB judges spent days touring the town, scoring us on six criteria:
- Community Appearance
- Environmental Action
- Heritage Conservation — Natural and Built
- Tree Management
- Landscaping
- Plants and Flowers
We were awarded 4 out of 5 Blooms — rated Excellent, with special recognition for community involvement and heritage conservation. A strong first showing.
From the 2024 evaluation report
Entering your colourful community on the water is soothing for the soul. To come across such an expansive urban forest in a small town is testament to the foresight of your forefathers.
The gardens and landscapes are lovely, and the care and dedication of the Mahone Bay Garden Club, and many of the residents and businesses, are to be commended.
Your emphasis on all aspects of heritage preservation — from maritime, architecture, genealogical, Museum collections, Community Centre, and the Three Churches, to the arts and culture — is vital to maintaining a vibrant community.
You are a progressive town with a dedicated base of volunteers, staff and council.
You are an example for others to follow. The dedication of your volunteers is exceptional. You achieve a great amount with a limited number of resources, of which you should be very proud.
Judges return July 21–23, 2026.
We're entering the evaluated program again in 2026. The CiB judges will tour Mahone Bay July 21 through 23, with their main on-foot day being Wednesday, July 22. Sylvia Jackson (Festivals of Mahone Bay) is the MBTCC representative coordinating with the program.
Judges look for the visible signs of a "blooming" community in the commercial heart of town — flowers, attractive signage, well-tended storefronts, a welcoming appearance. They notice the small things.
For Chamber member businesses —
A small ask for July 22.
Wednesday July 22 — the judges' main tour day — is also garbage day in Mahone Bay. Two easy things that make a real difference:
- Place your waste and recycling as discreetly as possible that morning — tuck bins out of street view where you can, bring them back in as soon as collection is done.
- Pull the weeds around your storefront, sidewalk edge, and parking entry. Five minutes per shop adds up to a noticeably tidier Main Street.
If you've got a planter, hanging basket, window box, or even a watered pot on the sidewalk — judges will see it. Anything you do to lean into the "welcoming, well-tended" feel of the town that day pays back across the whole entry.
"It's not just about a pot of petunias."
What the CiB program rewards — and what 2024's judges spent five long paragraphs in their report praising — is the same thing that makes Mahone Bay work the rest of the year: a community that shows up. Volunteers who plant, gardeners who tend, business owners who sweep their stretch of sidewalk, councillors and staff who pull together.
Every member business is part of that. Joining in this July is a small ask. Being part of the reason we keep earning Blooms is a bigger one — and that's the part we're really after.