Saturday 26th April

HPS Somerset Group Plant Sale

West Monkton Village Hall, 10.00am – 12.30pm

Admission £1

Somerset HPS members and professional nursery sellers are welcome to sell at our popular plant sale. The hall will be filled with tables decked with tempting plants, so come along and enjoy a morning of selling, or buying, amid like-minded gardeners.

Two bits of good news:

• The self drive to Regency House in Hemyock is now £20 instead of £25
• The trips are open to anyone, members or otherwise

All coach trips and garden visits must be pre-booked with Penny Berry via email: p.berry487@btinternet.com or phone: 01278 662720. The revised booking form for trips is available here. Details of each trip are shown on the Programme page. Location maps or directions will be supplied following booking a place on an event.

On Wednesday the 7th of May we have the first of the season’s garden visits to Regency House, Hemyock and Kia Ora, Cullompton. This is a perfect time of year to visit both gardens, and below are details for the gardens. These trips are for Members, with the annual membership fee being an affordable £5, non-members could join the group in advance, and attend the trips.

The deadline for booking is Sunday 20th of April.

---

All coach trips and garden visits must be pre-booked with Penny Berry via email: p.berry487@btinternet.com or phone: 01278 662720.  The booking form for trips is available here. Details of each trip are shown below. Location maps or directions will be supplied following booking a place on an event.

---

Wednesday 7th May

Self-drive visit to Regency House, Hemyock and Kia Ora, Cullompton.

Regency House

We will meet at 11:00 at Regency House owned by Jenny Parsons, who recommends we allow 2 hours for our visit. The garden is 5 acres, with many interesting and unusual trees and shrubs, together with a walled garden with both fruit and vegetables.

Regency House has a lake with ponds and lots of bog planting. Jenny has confirmed tea/coffee and a cake will be available at the end of our visit.

Kia-Ora Farm & Gardens

Our afternoon visit at 14:00 will be Kia-Ora Farm & Gardens owned by Mary Disney. The garden is a charming, peaceful 10 acre garden with lawns, lakes and ponds. The garden will be particularly interesting in May with rhododendrons, azaleas, herbaceous borders and rockeries in bloom.

At the end of our visit Mary will be offering a wide selection of cakes & tea at the end of our visit.

---

Many thanks for your support, Katie.

Saturday 12th April

Alun and Jill Whitehead- ‘Irises for the Natural Garden’

Jill & Alun hail from Aulden Farm, near Leominster in Herefordshire. In 2007, they heard about an old collection of Siberian iris which had fallen into neglect, so they acquired the remaining plants and re-established them – with many additions – as a new National Collection. They now grow approximately 150 cultivars, many of which will feature in this talk. Siberian irises lend themselves to naturalistic planting schemes, with their grassy foliage and numerous, relatively small flowers. They are also very adaptable, happy in wetter conditions and normal soils alike.

http://auldenfarm.co.uk

---

Meetings and lectures are held at West Monkton Village Hall unless otherwise specified. All meetings at West Monkton Village Hall are free to members (except for the Group Plant Sale in April), and there is a modest charge of £5 for non-members (when space is available). The Group has a plant stall and a book stall at most of the lectures listed, and holds a Flower & Pot Plant of the Month competition.

Our next meeting of the 2025 season is coming up on Saturday 15th of March (arrive at 10:30 for 11am).

Rob Schmidt ‘Greencombe Gardens’

Greencombe Gardens, near Porlock, is a spectacular sight in the spring. The garden extends along a hillside below tree-covered slopes, offering outstanding views over ancient fields to Porlock Bay and the sea beyond. The sheltered site provides a microclimate in which plants thrive, growing taller than they would in a more open site.

Created by the redoubtable Joan Loraine, Greencombe boasts a collection of exceptional plants, grown using organic methods that she termed “intrinsic gardening”. Highlights include the National Collection of Erythroniums, which form carpets of dainty elfin hats during April, and the rich colours of rhododendrons and azaleas.

The garden also holds National Collections of Gaultheria, Polystichum and Vaccinium. Mature pieris and camellias tower overhead, and the garden boasts a champion English Holly tree, one of the largest and oldest in the British Isles.

Rob will be talking about how his aunt, Joan Loraine, created the garden as it is today. She had very definite ideas about how Greencombe should be laid out and managed, which Rob and his partner, Kim-Norah, have continued to follow since her death in 2016. Plus, of course, there will be plenty of sumptuous photos of the garden in its full glory!

---

Meetings and lectures are held at West Monkton Village Hall unless otherwise specified. All meetings at West Monkton Village Hall are free to members (except for the Group Plant Sale in April), and there is a modest charge of £5 for non-members (when space is available).

The Group has a plant stall and a book stall at most of the lectures listed, and holds a Flower & Pot Plant of the Month competition.