A hanging offence

For a man who has been accused of the most appalling vulgarity, Barry Cruse is a disappointingly innocuous figure. As he opens the door of his hairdresser's salon in open-necked shirt and smart navy slacks, only his generously lacquered silver hair could conceivably be found wanting by the taste police. Yet in recent weeks Barry has been pilloried in his home town of Bath for a serious lapse of judgement.

As chairman of the Bath in Bloom committee, his offence has been to orchestrate the 2,000 hanging baskets that bedeck the city's genteel Georgian facades throughout the summer. Ordinarily, Barry could expect gratitude and plaudits for organising the city's pastel adornments. Instead, he has been castigated for desecrating Bath's elegant listed buildings with the floral equivalent of furry dice.

Chief among Barry's antagonists is Sir Roy Strong, blue-blooded horticulturist and former director of the Victoria & Albert Museum, who has decried the hanging baskets as a "tidal wave of vulgarity that hideously disfigures the city". His view has now been echoed by Dr Peter Woodward, chairman of the Bath Preservation Trust architectural committee, who's condemned "the ghastly baskets" for smothering the restrained beauty of John Wood's butterscotch terraces.

In a city with a long history of duels, this feud rivals any vitriolic spat from the pen of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Insults have been traded and battle lines drawn. All it needs to complete the quarrel is the stinging smack of glove against cheek and a choice of weapons at dawn.

Barry, however, is not without his own army of formidable allies. "All my ladies are on my side," he says. "I have about 70 customers a day in the salon and they're all incredibly supportive. I can't understand why anyone would say the baskets are naff. In my opinion, they enhance the stonework. It's outrageous for Roy Strong to interfere. He's such an old fart."

With the obsessive zeal of a latter-day Beau Nash, for more than 20 years Barry has been cleaning up Bath's streets and creating an ambience of wholesome gentility. As chairman of the Bath in Bloom committee for the past three years, he oversees the planting of some half a million flowers, which decorate the city's parks, public buildings and business premises from May to October.

No building is more fragrant than Barry's own first-floor salon in Moorland Road ("you'll find me above Bettabuys; look for the sign saying Hair Artist"). Each summer the salon is festooned with 90 hanging baskets, which all but obscure the shop front in a cascade of petals.

"I'm passionate about my baskets. We're known as the Salon of Flowers," he beams. "We even get coaches driving down the street to see the displays. People who are criticising me don't realise that our flower arrangements are essential for attracting tourists to the town. Visitors can't get enough of them."

On the streets of Bath this week, however, most visitors were too busy dodging thunderstorms to notice the sodden clumps of lilac and white petunias swaying above their heads.

Outside the Pump Room, a solitary cagoule-clad tourist braved the weather to photograph a 7-ft teddy bear in Beef-eater costume guarding the entrance to a toy shop.

"The baskets are overdone; they look too suburban," scowled Nancy from Toronto, scurrying back towards shelter. "They kinda remind me of asteroids."

Less disparaging was a bearded American - identified as Garry by a sticky label on the lapel of his jacket - who was on a whistle-stop "taster tour" of the UK. "The flowers are fine. What's the problem?" he muttered, inspecting a brace of Poulteney Bridge bookends in a gift shop window. "Haven't you people got more important things to worry about in this place?"

No, it seems we haven't. Call it the Changing Rooms culture, or makeover madness, but the current urge to prettify every aspect of our environment has turned us into a rather uptight nation. As part of the clean-up craze, this summer has seen a record-breaking 1,400 cities, towns and villages compete in the Britain in Bloom contest - the annual flower fest that rewards those communities with the most daffodil roundabouts and tubs of conifers on garage forecourts.

With the twin carrots of civic pride and the tourist pound dangling before them, local councils are going to increasing lengths to outshine their municipal rivals. Last year, Aberdeen splashed out pounds 1m to ensure its triumph in the contest, while this year Exeter has recruited a corps of floral vigilantes to prevent vandals from trampling on its chances of victory.

"Britain in Bloom is an intensely fought competition. Everyone is anxious to win because it reflects so well on the community," says Professor Graham Ashworth, director of the Tidy Britain Group, which sponsors the contest. "It's a celebration of British life."

This year, thanks to Barry, Bath is once again a contender for the trophy. In August, competition judges will visit a short list of candidates before 500 delegates gather in Harrogate to deliver their verdicts. "It is a glittering and dramatic occasion," says Professor Ashworth. "These are the Oscars of the horticultural world."

"The Britain in Bloom award is the gardener's Holy Grail," confirms Barry.

"Bath has a proud tradition in the contest and we're not going to stand by and let other towns steal our thunder. The hanging baskets have always been a vital part of the campaign, but Bath isn't afraid to move with the times. We've always been very with-it."

Yet compared with trendy London florists such as Paula Pryke and McQueens, whose fiercely geometric displays of arum lilies and anthuriums have turned flower-arranging into high art, Barry's faith in the humble petunia-filled basket looks sadly anachronistic. Dangling from Bath's amber colonnades or perched on white poles along the pavements, the motley collection of insipid blooms looks like the Queen Mother's hat on a wet day at Ascot, with pink pastel shades as limp and sickly as a box of confetti.

Despite Barry's loyalty to the fluffy balls of foliage, even Professor Ashworth admits that the baskets' time may have passed. "Often our judges come back fulminating about too many baskets. A lot of people get carried away and make the whole place look like a harvest festival."

James Bartholomew, author of the style guide Yew and Non-U, believes that any self-respecting gardener should have tossed the horticultural horror on to the compost heap a long time ago. "Hanging baskets are utterly naff," he says. "The only place you'd expect to find them are outside the porches of those awful executive homes - and that's where they should remain. Bath is far too elegant a place for something so non-U."

But for all the sniping, sales of hanging baskets show no signs of wilting. British firms recently sold hundreds of wrought-iron models to Moscow city council for decorating Red Square, and the basket has now been reinvented for the millennium with the unveiling of the revolutionary, hi-tech, self- watering prototype that was the talk of last month's Chelsea Flower Show.

Barry, meanwhile, has every confidence that the baskets' lasting appeal will help bring the Britain in Bloom title back to its rightful home. His other trump cards, he believes, will be the flower-bed of white begonias dedicated to Diana, Princess of Wales, in the Memorial Gardens ("a very fitting tribute") and a three-dimensional display of leaping dolphins in Parade Gardens. "Our 3-D works are always very popular. A few years ago we had a three-dimensional teddy bear motif. It was one of our most memorable creations."

In Bath's Milsom Street, day trippers Patrick and Elizabeth, in matching lime waterproofs, are sniffily dismissive of Bath's hopes of reclaiming its crown. "Back home in Dungannon, we have a coat of arms cut into a hedge and a wonderful imitation horse and cart," they chorus. "We haven't seen anything in Bath to beat that."

Barry, however, will not countenance defeat. The opprobrium that has rained down on his carefully coiffed head has only steeled his resolve. Already he is dreaming of glory on a bigger stage. "Ah yes, the Entente Florale," he says, his eyes misting over at the thought of the Continent's premier floral prize. "That would be the ultimate accolade. I won't be happy until I see Bath recognised as the most blooming city in Europe. Nothing will deflect me from that quest."