Last meeting in December
Jaqueline Iddon – Christmas from the Garden
A practical demonstration, making a blue spruce door ring, winter pots and other festive ideas to help decorate your home for Christmas. Jaqueline gave us a very entertaining and amusing talk whilst showing us how to make beautiful christmas decorations using foliage from the garden with added value glittery bits from the Range andHomesense! With both the wreath and the candle decoration it appears that ‘more is more’, similar to the hanging baskets and tubs that the group has seen demonstrated it seems that you need to use twice as many plants/foliage as you think are needed. Jaqueline produced beautiful creations and also showed us how to ‘jazz up’ potted plants to give as christmas gifts.
Wednesday 9 October
The meeting was a very entertaining talk by Tony Brougham on Autumn hanging baskets. Tony represents SSAFA (soldiers sailors air force families association) and he briefly explained the work of the organization and the support it gives.
Tony demonstrated planting up a hanging basket to look good from now until Easter and gave various tips to ensure success including aerating the compost as you fill the basket, adding a slow release fertilizer and using ‘egg water’ from boiling eggs – 3 drops in a litre of water to add calcium when watering.
The basket centerpiece was a red Cordyline and Tony then added 4 pansies, Ivy, Heather, Cyclamen, Ajuga and Heuchera. This produced a lovely full basket with immediate color and the Ajuga will start to trail over the basket sides as it grows. Alternative centerpiece plants could be a larger Heuchera or snow Lavender. Tony suggested watering should be done in the mornings when birds are around to eat any slugs.
Tony brought a fabulous selection of plants for sale at super reasonable prices which proved very popular with the group.
The basket that Tony made was raffled for SSAFA and raised £30.
Wednesday 11 September
This meeting included a show and share event, plant sale and a talk by Peter Gately. The event was a competition over 3 classes.
Best plant/flower won by a new member (name to be confirmed)
Best Herb and Best fruit/vegetable won by Sue Watkinson
Overall Best in show won by Sue Watkinson
There were a fairly limited number of entries but hopefully now that group members have seen how it works we will have more entires for any future similar events. The plant sale table was well supplied with generous donation of plants from several members and raised £14 towards group funds.
Peter Gately gave a talk entitled a plant for every day and shared photos of his garden for each month of the year showing how it is possible to have something in flower all through the year. Peter brought a beautiful selection of flowers from his garden which are currently in flower including:
Acanthus – Persicaria firetail – Cephalaria – Purple loosestrife – Kaffir lily and Fuschia
Peter particularly likes native plants and includes several in his garden which have a long flowering time including:
Red campion – Celandine – Hardy geranium – Yellow dead nettle – Mouseplant – Arisarum proboscideum
He also showed us photos of several lovely shrubs which are highly scented and flower through the colder months including:
Wintersweet – Snowdrop tree – Witch hazel – Magnolia
He gave us a very interesting and informative talk with lots of ideas for plants to include for year round color and scent.
Sue Gillon from Meadow View Plants brought plants for sale. The talk was very interesting and informative and Marguerite involved the members. She explained how colours could be used to affect the depth and perspective in the garden. She used plants and flowers to demonstrate the way colours work together e.g. hot borders for drama and instant appeal, while cooler for a calmer space.
Last Updated on November 8, 2022