One of our members Jenny Barr is looking for a supplier of Cornish Grit in our area. If anyone knows please reply to this email or use the Contact form on the website.

Thanks.

Calendar

Ro FitzGerald’s wonderful 2017 calendar, featuring all the selections she has chosen each month throughout 2016, is now available.  I took orders at our last meeting but I still have a few remaining.  Because of the interest (and hence print volume), the price is now £7.50 rather than the previously advertised £10 (a bargain, Ed.).  I shall have them available at our November AGM, so if you’d like one and want to avoid disappointment please place your order with me now at stuart_senior@msn.com.

Stuart Senior

Tea Volunteer

Ruth has asked for one volunteer to help prepare and serve tea and coffee at the AGM on the 19th of November. Please reply to this email if you can help, or use the contact page on the website. Alternatively email Ruth or the committee directly.

Programme

Just a note to say that the details of next year’s coach and self-drive trips are now on the Programme page of the website.

Our member Helen Clark discovered a problem for anyone approaching Monkton Heathfield Village Hall from the North.

According to her conversation with the County Council, the Garden Centre end of the village will be closed to traffic, and the only way of reaching the hall is from the Taunton (south) end.

You may want to reconsider your route to the hall and allow extra time for the diversions which will be in place.

The latest programme of speakers is now available to view on the Somerset HPS website.  We have an exciting line-up for the coming months, with talks from snowdrop connoisseur Alan Street of Avon Bulbs; Michaelmas daisy expert Helen Picton, and the internationally renowned Dublin gardener Helen Dillon.  Click here to view the programme.

Hello,

Don’t forget, this Saturday 24th is the Somerset Group’s first ever Autumn Plant Fair. This is a new venture for us and promises to be an exciting event, set within the inspiring surroundings of Forde Abbey.  Many specialist nurseries and rural craftspeople will be attending.  Our group members will be manning a stand selling plants, explaining what the HPS is about, and showing children how to plant bulbs. We have publicised the event far and wide, and hope to attract a large crowd on the day.

So whether you’re looking for something rare and unusual, or just have a few gaps to fill in your autumn borders, come along and join in the jamboree.  The gates open at 10am and entry costs just £5, which includes admission to Forde Abbey’s gardens (usually £10).  The Undercroft Tearoom serves a range of teas, coffees and cakes, and also provides light lunches from 12 – 2.30pm. The Plant Fair will end at 4pm.

Exhibitors include:

• Avon Bulbs
• Barracott Nursery
• Blooming Hill Plants
• Coates Willow
• Desert to Jungle
• Dorset Perennials
• Elworthy Cottage Plants
• Entwood Farm Plants
• Gardeners Delight Nursery
• Gillard Garden
• Hidden Valley Nursery
• In Clover
• Kevin Hughes Plants
• Millwood Plants
• Picket Lane Nursery
• Shady Plants
• Shaker Woodwork
• Steve at Bobbin Wood
• Tolman Topiary
• Tortworth Plants
• Waytown Nursery
• Wild Thyme Plants

The Forde Abbey Nursery will also be open.

The map below can give you directions to Forde Abbey (if you’re looking at this in an email please click the title and view this on the website)

After a huge investment of time and effort, the national Hardy Plant Society website has been transformed into something colourful, interesting and new. We have our own page on the site, but overall the new design has made better order of the vast amount of information available. Click the link above or the screenshot below to visit the new site.

The 50/50 Plant Sale prior to the lecture at our September meeting each autumn continues to prove popular.  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 on Saturday – salvia specialist, Janet Buist – will also be bringing plants for sale.

Altogether, it promises to be an excellent opportunity to bag some choice plants while the soil is still warm enough to plant them.

Flower/Plant of the Month

Don’t forget your entries for the Plant of the Month competition!

For the Flower Section, it is just a single flower if that is how the plant grows, i.e. a narcissus or a dahlia.  If it is a flowering shrub, for example with clusters of flowers along the stem, then it is the whole stem that you display.

The point is that it is not a flower arranging exhibit, so multiple blooms or stems are not what we are looking for.  If you are an Ikebana fiend then you’ll know, of course, that even a single bloom may be displayed very artistically!

For the Pot Plant Section, much the same rule applies.  It is a single plant in a pot.  For a plant that naturally produces little offsets all around the central growth, as many succulents do, you do not have to remove all the offsets!