Tickets are selling well for the Hardy Plant Society Somerset Group Early Spring Plant Fair at Yeo Valley Organic Garden. You may purchase yours by using this link. They remain at the same low price of only £4 for HPS and RHS members and £5 for everyone else. Tickets for entry after 1.00pm may be purchased on the gate (cash only please).

We have the following wonderful nurseries attending the fair this year:

• Biocentric Plants
• CB Plants
• Derek’s Fuchsias
• Elworthy Cottage
• Floyd’s Climbers
• Gardener’s Delight
• In Clover
• Leesa’s Alpines
• Long Acre Plants
• Malcolm Allison Plants
• Pennards Plants
• Triffids Nursery
• Tynings Climbers

Jane Hunt

Mike and Jenny Spiller’s garden at Elworthy Cottage, Elworthy is open for the National Garden Scheme on Wednesday 5th,  Friday 14th, and Tuesday 25th February from 11am to 4.30 pm admission £5.00.

Tea, coffee and cake available in aid of the Childrens Hospice South West. The adjoining nursery will also be open.

For any further information phone 01984 656427 or see www.elworthy-cottage.co.uk. Elworthy is on the B3188 12 miles Northwest of Taunton (postcode TA4 3PX) ,or this precise spot on What3Word: https://w3w.co/command.playfully.entrust

Mike & Jenny

Tickets for the Early Spring Plant Fair at Yeo Valley Organic Garden near Blagdon on 29th March are now on sale! If you are keen to buy those exciting rarities and want to be first through the gate you need to get your tickets soon as the first two hours of entry at 10.00am and 11.00am sell out very quickly. Go to our website www.somersethps.com home page where you will find a direct link to the Ticketsource ticketing system, or click the button here:

Don’t forget to book your “parking permit” at the same time as ticket numbers are limited by the available parking places. If you don’t wish to book online you may come after 1.00pm and pay on the gate (cash only please). Ticket prices are just £5 (or £4 for HPS and RHS members – bring evidence of membership to show at the gate).

The garden is open until 4.00pm although the fair will start to close at 3.00pm. Yeo Valley products will be on sale and their lovely cafe will again be selling light refreshments throughout the day. Sorry but no dogs are permitted in the garden.

Flyers for the event are attached. If you would print these off and display them locally or at your local garden club we’d be very grateful!”

Thank you,

Jane

---

The flyer below is two A5 flyers on an A4 sheet.

One of our members Lyn Miles, Chairman of the HPS Galanthus Special Interest Group will be opening her garden during snowdrop season, as part of the National Garden Scheme, and would welcome visitors, whether SHPS members or the public.

Lyn’s garden is open:

• Friday 7th Feb
• Every Thursday until 13th March
• Weekends 18th & 19th Jan, 1st & 2nd Feb and 22nd & 23rd Feb

All openings are from 11-4pm, with coffee, cakes, soups etc.

All welcome, cash preferred, snowdrops for sale and snowdrop sundries.

WESTCROFT, Boscombe Village, Salisbury Wilts SP4 0AB, parking nearby at Boscombe Social Club

Lyn said: It is a really early season, I have loads out already but several hundred in the garden!

Many thanks, Lyn Miles, a Galanthophile if ever there was one and Chairman of the HPS Galanthus Group!

I am about 4 miles from Stonehenge!

Our first meeting of the 2025 season is coming up on Saturday 18th (arrive at 10:30 for 11am).

Ken is a botanist and writer of popular books on botany. He is a retired Senior Research Fellow of Sheffield University and has written for the newspaper Telegraph. He is also an editor for the journal Functional Ecology. (Wikipedia)

His talk will be ‘No Nettles: The Truth about Wildlife Gardening’ – one not to miss

---

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.

Stella Exley will be bringing plants and bulbs for sale. She is also happy to bring any orders members might like to make in advance to avoid postage costs. Orders would need to reach her by Thursday November 14th.

The website for orders is https://www.harespringcottageplants.co.uk

See you on Saturday, Hester.

Over the years my electric soil steriliser has been invaluable when cleansing greenhouse soil ready for the next season or preparing compost.

The time has come for me to move on, but the steriliser is still good and moreover has a new heating element. The committed gardener will be aware of the value of this equipment.

If you want more information or better still would like to take it off my hands, speak to me at an HPS meeting – or use the contact form underneath this news item on the SHPS website.

Roy Stickland.

Coming this Saturday, September 21st.

50/50 Plant Sale followed by Sally Morgan – ‘Controlling Pests and Diseases in the Organic Garden’

50/50 Plant Sale starts at 10.00am. Lecture at 11.00am

Sally is an experienced no-dig, organic gardener and plant lover whose most recent project has been the restoration of a walled garden on her farm in Somerset. She is Editor of Organic Farming Magazine, published by the Soil Association, and has a wealth of knowledge about dealing with pests and diseases without resorting to chemicals. For those of us trying to garden sustainably, this will be a really useful lecture.

The 50/50 Plant Sale is a popular event every September. 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.

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 would be most welcome.