We hope you can join us for our next talk and what should be an enjoyable and informative afternoon.

After qualifying in horticulture and working at Birmingham Botanical Gardens for 10 years, in 2018 Nigel Hopes became Head Gardener for Chelsea Gold medallist John Massey VMH in his private garden, ‘John’s Garden’ at Ashwood Nurseries. This wonderful three acre site includes informal borders, island beds, woodland dells and a wildlife meadow set against the beautiful backdrop of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. It’s regarded as one of the finest private gardens in the UK, with magnificent collections of trees, shrubs, herbaceous perennials and conifers adding to the interest all year round, and an abundance of rare plants as well as familiar favourites. Nigel will show us many parts of the garden and then tell us more about some of the interesting plant groups there, such as hellebores, hepatica, lewisia and more.

Hardy Plant Society members and non-members are all welcome.The cost is £3 each for national HPS members and £5 for non-members. To book, please drop an email asap to monmouthshirehps@gmail.com as places may be limited.

Our local HPS Monmouthshire group hopes to restart our meetings in Little Mill (between Abergavenny, Usk and Pontypool) in September. We are just finalising our 2021/22 programme which, while focused on meetings, may include occasional Zoom talks too. For further info on our group and full programme, see https://hpsmonmouthshire.co.uk/