Brian has been growing tender and unusual plants for over 30 years at his nursery, Trevena Cross Nurseries, near Helston in Cornwall. He is a member of the RHS Tender Ornamental Plant Committee and a RHS Gold Medal winner. In this talk he will be inspiring us to plant our pots and troughs with flower and foliage combinations that will turn heads!
Dear Colleagues
Following the sad and unexpected death of the previous postholder, Pauline Cooper, the Society is in urgent need of a new Seed Distribution Coordinator. Pauline and her predecessors have built an excellent and efficient team but someone needs to hold the reins.
The Seed Distribution Scheme receives and distributes seed all around the UK and from and to several countries internationally. It is open to both members and non-members. Seed remaining after all orders have been fulfilled is distributed at shows and to other organisations such as schools and charitable garden schemes. By becoming a part of this Scheme, enabling it to continue, grow and develop, you will be helping our Society to achieve its own charitable aims and keeping a lot of seedaholics very happy.
If you think you might be interested and would like to know more about what the role entails please email or give me a ring. I look forward to hearing from you.
With thanks and best wishes.
Judi
Judi Deakin
Honorary Secretary
hpshonsec@gmail.com
01686 624621
Roy asked if anyone who is available on March 24th at the ELM Plant Fair and would be willing to help with our stand or sell tickets on the gate, could make contact.
Last years event was jam-packed with plants and people, the latest details are below. Photos from last years event, it was very popular, get there early to bag a parking space.
HARDY PLANT SOCIETY – EARLY SPRING PLANT FAIR
Saturday 24th March 2018 – 10am – 4pm
20 of the South West’s top nurseries will be showing off their best plants. The admission charge to the plant sale and the gardens will be £4.00 for the day for all adults except RHS and HPS members who pay a reduced rate of £3.50 so please remember to bring your membership card!
Among the nurseries attending are:
Avon Bulbs
Blooming Hill Plants
CB Plants
Desert to Jungle
Dorset Perennials
Elworthy Cottage Plants
Gardener’s Delight
Hardy Way Plants
Hilltop Nursery
In Clover
Kevin Hughes Plants
Long Acre Plants
Mill Cottage Plants
Millwood Plants
Pennard Plants
Phoenix Perennial Plants
Picket Lane Nursery
Roseland House Nursery
Shady Plants
Wild Thyme Nursery
Margery Fish Plant Nursery (our own of course)
Also attending are:
Beans & Herbs – organic vegetable seeds
Park Produce – locally made apple juice, honey and preserves
There are still a number of places available for the HPS Annual Lecture Day and AGM to be held in Tiverton, Devon on Saturday 24th March. Doors open at 9.00 and proceedings will start at 10.30.
The speakers are Dr Julian Sutton of Desirable Plants whose talk is entitled ‘For us not them – fact, informed ideas and scurrilous opinion on the naming of plants’ and Nick Macer of Pan Global Plants who will be telling us about ‘Snow in Burma’. The day should finish by 4.30 pm. Tickets cost £22 to include lunch or £16 without lunch
You can book online https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/hardy-plant-society or by post (a booking form is attached)
This promises to be an interesting and exciting day, with several nurseries in attendance as well as HPS displays and the launch of our new ‘Ferns’ booklet.
If all online tickets have been sold please contact the office as there may still be places available.
Many thanks
Judi Deakin
Honorary Secretary
hpshonsec@gmail.com
Booking form here: ald-agm-booking-2018
Full event information here: agm-info-2018
Seavington Gardening Club is having a talk by Derry Watkins about ‘Late Summer Colour’ on Thursday 12th April – refreshments are served from 7pm, the talk will start at 7.30pm. Visitors are welcome £5 payable at the door.
For people who are not familiar with Derry take a look at this BBC televisual programme extract from a 2015 episode of GW: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02mf737
Derry will be bringing a wide range of plants for sale too.
Circulated on behalf of our member Karen Day.
As part of an experiment we have made a video about propagating the Polystichum fern. The video explains two techniques using either a whole fern leaf or by cutting and potting individual fernlets, and shows the steps to producing lots of new ferns.
We filmed this a few weeks ago on a dry, cold, and blustery day at Sally Gregson’s nursery to see what feedback we would get by making educational videos like this.
We are interested in hearing your feedback on the video, regarding the overall usefulness, the quality of the information, the level of detail and the overall length.
You can send feedback by email or by commenting on the video page by clicking the image below to visit and view the video, and leave your thoughts in the comments box at the bottom.
Click the image above to visit the videos page
If you think the video is worth watching please tell others, as we’d like to hear from as many people as possible.
And finally, if there is a technique, topic or plant you’d like to see a video on which you think we should cover, please let us know too.
Thanks, Bill & Sally.
Claire is the Head Gardener at Hestercombe, which combines the landscape garden originally created in 1750 by Coplestone Warre Bampfylde with the early 20th century formal gardens designed by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll. Claire will be talking about the challenges of restoring a heritage garden, including the difficulties in maintaining colour in a garden that was originally only designed for summer, as well as tracking down the original plants outlined in Jekyll’s design.
Some of you may have spotted Claire with Monty in his Paradise Gardens series recently.
Here are three more Snowdrop related information bursts:
Higher Yarde Farm, Staplegrove, TA2 6SW (https://www.higheryardefarm.co.uk/about)
Both from 10.30 to 3.30. Donation of £5 includes hot drinks and homemade cakes or biscuits. Raffle and stalls as well. 3 acre garden to walk round with masses of snowdrops.
Contact Anita or Tom on 01823 451553.
Our member Angela also has a list of snowdrops for sale on her website here: http://www.snapecottagegarden.co.uk/snowdrops_for_sale.htm (look for the PDF at the bottom of the page.)
The NGS snowdrop weekend is coming up, featuring our members Mike and Jenny Spiller at Elworthy Cottage, and also East Lambrook Manor with Mike & Gail Werkmeister. Check out the NGS events for the weekend on the NGS website here: https://www.ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/snowdrop-gardens/
Vivienne Wood would like to help to find a supplier for Melianthus major ‘Purple Haze’ – if anyone knows, reply to this email and I’ll pass it on.
Two of our members have snowdrops for sale, East Lambrook Manor (Margery Fish Nursery) and Elworthy Cottage Plants. Attached are their latest catalogues. For more information visit their websites:
Stock lists below.
Hello,
Jane Hunt has kindly sent in the Plant of the Month contributions for the past year, and would like to pass on the horticultural baton for 2018. Jane believes someone at the AGM already suggested they’d like to be the PotM chief so if that person was you, please let us know.
The role is quite simple, pick a plant, provide a good photo which will work when small and write a few words as background on your pick, then send it to Bill for loading onto the website. Repeat this process once a month and Bob is indeed your uncle.
For anyone unfamiliar with the Plant of the Month, this is displayed on the right hand side of the home page, and an archive of previous PotMs is saved here: https://somersethps.com/previous-plants-of-the-month/
From myself and the Committee – have a very good Christmas and see you all in 2018.
Bill.
Photos from the AGM below – click to enlarge.
The Hardy Plant Society Somerset Group 