Apologies, I posted the details of the 2020 plant sale, below are the correct details.

Saturday 21st September – Plant Sale 10.00am
Lecture starts at 11.00am

50/50 Plant Sale:  (Hall opens at 9.30am)  followed by:

Marcel Floyd – ‘Clematis’

Marcel is the owner of Floyd’s Climbers and Clematis in Wiltshire, and has been growing award-winning clematis for over 30 years.  He will be demonstrating how to prune and take cuttings from various types of clematis, as well as advising on how and where to grow the different varieties.  All your clematis questions answered!

Plant orders can be made online, and Marcel will bring them to the meeting.

www.floydsclimbers.co.uk

The 50/50 Plant Sale prior to the lecture at our September meeting each autumn is a popular event. The Group keeps half the money taken and returns the other half to the seller.  The hall will be open from 9.30am – 10.00am to receive your plants to sell.

Please ensure that each plant has two identical labels, both of them bearing the name of the plant, your name and the price.  One will be removed so that the amount you are owed can be totted up and given to you at the end of the meeting, when you can also reclaim any unsold plants and your labels (tip: write in pencil on the labels so that they may be reused).

Selling will take place between 10.00am and 11.00am, at which point the lecture begins.  Offers of help with selling on the day will be most welcome.

Our speaker, Marcel Floyd, will also be bringing plants for sale.

Saturday 21st September – Plant Sale 10.00am
Lecture starts at 11.00am

50/50 Plant Sale:  (Hall opens at 9.30am)  followed by:

Charlie Pridham – ‘Climbing Plants’

Charlie and his wife, Liz, run Roseland House Nursery in Chacewater, near Truro, Cornwall where they hold two National Plant Collections: Clematis viticella and Lapageria rosea.  They also grow a great range of other exciting climbing plants and conservatory plants, so this talk should inspire us to cover that bare wall or fence in something unusual and interesting.

The 50/50 Plant Sale prior to the lecture at our September meeting each autumn is a popular event. The Group keeps half the money taken and returns the other half to the seller.  The hall will be open from 9.30am – 10.00am to receive your plants to sell.

Please ensure that each plant has two identical labels, both of them bearing the name of the plant, your name and the price.  One will be removed so that the amount you are owed can be totted up and given to you at the end of the meeting, when you can also reclaim any unsold plants and your labels (tip: write in pencil on the labels so that they may be reused).

Selling will take place between 10.00am and 11.00am, at which point the lecture begins.  Offers of help with selling on the day will be most welcome.

Plants for Sale:  Members may also pre-order plants direct from Charlie Pridham and he will bring them to the meeting.  Email charlie@roselandhouse.co.uk or call 01872 560451 to pre-order.

www.roselandhouse.co.uk

A talk by the most decorated female exhibitor at Chelsea Flower Show, with 23 gold medals to date. Rosy and her husband Rob have turned their Hampshire-based nursery into one of the UK’s leading nurseries, with an unrivalled selection of over 1,200 herbaceous perennials. Rosy will draw on her vast experience to look at attributes of different plants, how to grow them, how to combine them for wonderful combinations, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

When and Where

The temple gardens of Japan are renowned throughout the world for their raked gravel, well placed rocks, and no plants. At least, very few. Such occasional plants are placed strategically, singly, designed to engage the visitor with their enigmatic immediacy.

Each plant is native: cherry, chrysanthemum, wisteria; it is symbolic; and it celebrates a season.

Tricyrtis is just such a plant. The Toad Lily, to use its English common name, is called ‘hototogisu’ in Japanese, an onomatopoeic word for the cuckoo whose spotted chest the flower is thought to resemble. But it is the delicacy and complexity of the flower structure that appealed to the Zen monks who made the temple gardens. They found in it a metaphor for life itself. And in Zen poetry, ‘haiku’, the tricyrtis indicates the late summer whose days are shortening into autumn.

And here, in northern Europe, these Japanese tricyrtis flower during that long lean gap in any shady garden between the last of the foxgloves and astrantias, and the first of the snowdrops and hellebores. It accompanies Hydrangea serrata, Japanese anemones and soft lush ferns from August to October, and merits a position close to the path, the better to examine the flowers more closely.

And what intricate flowers they are! From fat, flat-bottomed buds a ruff of six petals opens, in some species spotted, in others plain. The reproductive parts of the flower, the stamens and the stigma, are supported on an elongated style above the level of the petals. When the flower is pollinated, the whole corolla drops away leaving a shining green seed capsule the same shape as the bud.

The most commonly grown tricyrtis in this country, T.formosana stolonifera, the ‘Toad Lily’, is, however, native to Taiwan. There it spreads by the roots in moist, loose, leafy soil in light shade. It has typical spotted flowers, and is easy to grow in the right conditions. Tricyrtis hirta grows wild on shady rocks in the wooded mountains of Japan, arching down to present its paler, spotted flowers over light green, slightly hairy leaves. And Japan is home to many other species of tricyrtis, among them T.macropoda with recurved white flowers and pink spots. This plant is called ‘yama-hototogisu’ in Japanese, the ‘mountain tricyrtis’.

There are some golden yellow species that are also worth seeking out from the specialist nurseries. Tricyrtis latifolia has, as its name suggests, leaves as wide as saucers, setting off yellow flowers that are speckled chestnut brown. It would trail prettily down a shady bank or over rocks or down a wall.

So try a few tricyrtis under a light tree canopy where the soil keeps its moisture without getting boggy. Dot a few, discreet, slug-pubs about. Slugs and snails are lager-louts: they prefer beer to beauty.

And you too will surely get hooked on toads, or should that be cuckoos?

Sally Gregson

www.millcottageplants.co.uk

September 2019

Tuesday 17th September

Coach trip to Bicton Park Botanical Gardens.

Once recognised as being one of the finest gardens in England, Bicton Park is set on a hillside leading down to formal water gardens with canals, fountains, a small stream and a large lake. A fernery and rock gardens are overlooked by a flint stone hut which houses a shell collection. The pinetum and arboretum boast over 1,000 trees, including 25 Champion (exceptional specimen) Trees, and the drive to the nearby college is flanked by an extraordinary avenue of monkey puzzles. One of the main features of Bicton park is the semi-circular Palm House, built in the 1820s, which predates the one at Kew by 20 years and comprises Tropical, Arid, and Temperate Houses.

There is a restaurant on site.

https://www.bictongardens.co.uk

Booking

Please download the booking form here and return to Janet Murley as instructed.

The Professional Horticulture Group (South West) invites you to ‘Gardens of the National Trust’ on September 25th.

A study day involving:

• A conducted tour of Barrington Court gardens by the Horticulture Team
• A buffet lunch in Barrington Village Hall
• A talk by NT Gardens Adviser Ian Wright “Gardens: our living works of art opportunities & challenges in caring for the National Trust portfolio
  of diverse gardens and cultivated plants”

TIMETABLE

• 10.30. Assemble in the car park at Barrington Court, Ilminster, TA19 0NQ for registration and coffee
• 11.00. Welcome by the Horticulture Team, followed by tours of the Walled Garden and the famous ornamental gardens.
• 12.30. Assemble at Barrington Village Hall, TA19 0JE, for a buffet/
  finger lunch.
• 13.30. Introduction by the PHG Chairman, Professor Geoff Dixon, to the afternoon session and welcome to our speaker:
• IAN WRIGHT AHRHS FCIHort, Conservation Manager and Lead Adviser for the National Trust, SW
  • “Gardens: our living works of art — Opportunities and Challenges in caring for the National Trust’s portfolio of gardens and cultivated plants”. Afterwards there will be ample time for discussion.
• 4.00 Conclusion and tea

About

The Professional Horticulture Group (South West) had its origins in the Institute of Horticulture, where senior Founder members and Fellows based in the south west formed their own group.

The Group includes a variety of professional horticultural practitioners who are keen to visit centres of horticultural excellence, and to share and cascade their knowledge and skills.

On this occasion they wish to invite keen and experienced gardeners to join them for this special event.

Apply

Use the form below to notify the PHG of your interest. Upon acceptance, instructions and the £20 fee are described below.

PLACES ARE LIMITED FOR THIS SPECIAL EVENT.
SUCCESSFUL APPLICANTS WILL BE NOTIFIED AND THEN ASKED TO PAY THE FEE OF £20.00, PAYABLE TO Trevor Gibson.

IAN TRIBE, POPLESWELL HOUSE, POPLESWELL, CREWKERNE, TA18 7ES. 01460 271440, iantribe@gmail.com