Our November meeting saw the welcome return of Phil Colclough & Colin Henshall who were last with us in May 2018. These cheerful & talented chaps take beautiful photographs on their travels around the country then add a musical soundtrack to suit. They started with a fireworks display set to Vivaldi Four Seasons followed by gardens such as Consall, Hopton, Kiftsgate, Ness & Lea, then equally stunning landscape views from all around the UK, with a bonus of Picton’s national collection of Michaelmas Daisies. Next was a glorious display of autumn colours and finally a winter wonderland, all showing the best that our country has to offer.

Everybody had their personal favourites with some of the autumn shots being particularly breathtaking. The music was very varied and included pieces by Birmingham-born Stephen Rhodes and Mexican composer Pablo Arellano, plus a touching vignette of American poet George Cooper’s “Come little leaves”.

After the presentation they drew both the usual monthly raffle plus the special one for a timber garden storage box, which was won by Wendy Skelding. Pam Collins took first place in the monthly competition for a table decoration with a fireworks theme, the only entry but a well-deserved winner nevertheless. Tickets for our Christmas social evening were all sold and our paper 2020 speaker programmes were available, so we’re raring to go for next month & year!  

Our October speaker Cherish Watton took us on a fascinating exploration of the history of Women’s Land Army through both World Wars, with screenshots of original photographs, cartoons & news cuttings, plus audio clips of interviews & even songs. She showed us how Land Girls & Lumber Jills challenged stereotypes & proved through their hard work & determination that they could succeed, despite (for many) their initial lack of knowledge, plus discrimination in some local communities. Some members & visitors also shared their experiences of knowing, or being related to, Land Girls (& possibly Lumber Jills) and we were all impressed with Cherish’s research & enthusiasm for this topic, which focussed on individuals whom she had met & talked to.

Even more remarkable was that she had started all this work for a project qualification whilst at Sixth Form College in 2010, before building the website herself! Here is a link to it where you can find much more information: https://www.womenslandarmy.co.uk/ including the WLA memorial at Alrewas & applications for veterans badges.

We also handed out invitations to members for our Christmas Social evening in December and we continued to sell raffle tickets for our special garden storage box prize (please see links page) which will be drawn at the end of our November meeting. 

Justin Harrison our September speaker arrived early & set up a beautiful plant display for his presentation and to welcome us into the village hall, laid out a different way to keep us all on our toes! With his usual energy, he kept us all captivated as he showed how contrasting leaf colours & plant structures are as important as flowers in achieving a vibrant picture. He had brought a wide variety of plants, from autumn stalwarts such as Rudbeckia through striking evergreens to salvias, grasses, unusual irises & rosemary ginger. His display was all for sale after his talk concluded, with many snapped up quickly.  

There weren’t any entries for this month’s competition of a pot of autumn bulbs, which is a shame, but it meant that Justin only had to draw the raffle after answering questions before his well-earned cup of tea. Now we’re looking forward to our Autumn coach trip to Shropshire on Friday 13th (we’re not superstitious!), with Wildegoose nursery/garden/tea room in the morning then on to Morville Hall for a choice of gardens in the afternoon. 

Jeff Bates is most definitely your man for this topic – he can even make basic bulb botany sound interesting! A freelance lecturer, consultant and RHS examiner, his amusing delivery captures everybody’s attention & we all listened closely whilst he explained how to choose a range of bulbous plants to provide flower all year round. His talk was beautifully illustrated too, & he helped us to understand how “bulbs” (including of course corms, rhizomes & tubers) will thrive best when grown in similar conditions to their natural habitat. The fact we haven’t a photo of him is due to pesky gremlins & not related to his comment that he has a good face for radio! So instead we have a poor substitute of stored hyacinth bulbs instead.   

Our meeting on 13th August came shortly after our wonderful annual show (see blog entry below) but despite that we only had 2 entries in our monthly competition for a tray of 5 vegetables, which Jeff judged after his talk & drawing the raffle (winner Robin Wainwright, 2nd Rosalie Allden). We also announced our  autumn coach trip on 13th September, please see our events page for further details. What a busy year this is turning out to be! 

At our June meeting  we were entertained by Ken Whittaker with his “Secrets of Growing & Showing”, to help us prepare for our annual show in August. Ken,who is a show judge, clearly had a possible alternative career as a comedian and much laughter accompanied his useful advice. He explained why the presentations of exhibits is important & ways of achieving this. His wife Toni describes herself as his Executive Logistics Facilitator (ELF) and kept him from straying too far from the point. He also covered basic aspects of growing from seed, and we were all impressed with his dibber boards made using recycled silicone gun nozzles. 

Rosalie Allden had a walkover in our monthly competition with her charming display of wild flowers from her garden (maybe the rain deterred other competitors!) & we sold programmes for our Open Gardens this coming weekend 15th & 16th June, all hoping that the weather improves. members were asked to deliver their cuttings & divisions to the plant stall this week. There are a few spaces left on our summer evening trip to The Garth on Thursday 18th July. 

At our very well-supported AGM in May, our Chair & Treasurer gave their annual reports & the club members endorsed an increased membership fee of £15 to cover basic costs for the 2019/20 year. The seven committee members who were willing to stand again were re-elected & we then appointed our retiring secretary Mrs. Maureen Hemmingsley as our Honorary President to reflect her contribution to the club since its inception in 2007. Maureen gave a short speech of gratitude and was also presented with a wrapped gift which she opened at home to reveal the vase below. We also thanked our other retiring committee members Anna Stanley & Shelley Tunnicliffe with cards & gifts (Anna is away so hers will be delivered). 

After the official business was concluded we all enjoyed complimentary cheese & wine whilst listening to John Spire’s interesting talk and demonstration debunking many of the myths about growing Orchids. He explained about the different types, growing conditions, feeding and general care including practical demonstrations of when & how to re-pot. Who knew about the secret properties of cinnamon?! He had also brought along some beautiful examples of plants and finished his talk with a screen show of other varieties. We don’t hold a monthly competition on AGM night but we were pleased with the immediate response to our summer evening outing in July (only a few spaces left on the coach!) and we reminded everybody about saving spare divisions & cuttings for the plant stall at our Open Gardens Weekend in June (see events page for more information).      

Hot on the heels of our hellebore trip came our regular monthly meeting when a packed village hall welcomed Phil Smith Head Gardener at Wollerton to talk us through a year in the garden. He had some “before & after” photographs dating back to its creation in 1983 & explained how it has evolved since. He also had many beautiful shots of individual plants & groups emphasising the colour combinations, with a very useful plant list handout to save everybody scribbling notes. Photographs taken out of season & at times of day when the garden is closed such as the very early morning were particularly interesting.  

We’ve had 2 previous visits to Wollerton in 2016 & 2017, first in spring then in summer, and a 3rd one in autumn now sounds very tempting, especially as the hot garden would be at its best. We learnt about all the hard behind-the-scenes work that keeps the garden looking at its best, done by surprisingly few (but dedicated & skilled) staff & volunteers 

We also discovered that Lesley Jenkins (joint owner with her husband John) does most of the cooking in the super tea room, starting at crazy o’clock in the mornings! After his talk Phil drew our raffle & judged a well-supported monthly competition which was won by Maureen Brearley, 2nd Anne Wallbank, 3rd Ros Hallifax.   

http://www.wollertonoldhallgarden.com/ 

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We welcomed several visitors as well as members to our February meeting to enjoy Anita Wright’s talk using photographs of her garden at The Garth, Milford, which opens under the NGS scheme, to show how colour & interest can be achieved all year round. She is a NAFAS area demonstrator & guest gardening expert on BBC Radio Stoke with a dry sense of humour confirming that gardening should be fun – she has a keen eye for economy too & recycles other people’s horticultural cast-offs such as this greenhouse which is now the perfect home for her succulents.  

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Anita’s half-acre garden contains a wealth of interesting and unusual shrubs, plants & bulbs carefully selected to provide colour and interest throughout the year as well as raw materials for her flower arranging. She gave us some good planting suggestions, growing hints & tips, plus buying new plants such as witch hazel after they’ve finished flowering when they will be cheaper! She also reminded us not to forget creating places to relax & enjoy it all.

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After her presentation Anita judged our monthly competition of winter flowers & foliage from members’ gardens, which was won by Sylvia Nunn with Pam Collins a close second. We also announced that we currently have 9 gardens opening for our weekend in June, with Anne Wallbank kindly offering to host the event’s plant stall in her garden, so hopefully everybody will be potting up their treasures between now & then!