Blog
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Jewels of the Garden
In March we welcomed back Diane Clement, this time sharing her vast knowledge of cyclamen & hepaticas – her ‘jewels of the garden’. Her enchanting photography showed us their natural habitats and why they favour similar conditions, then the wide variety available and how to grow & propagate them in our area. There are so…
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2024 Christmas Social Evening
This year we held our first-ever Christmas dinner at The Rag, instead of our usual event at the village hall. We enjoyed a delicious three course meal followed by coffee and mince pies, although most of the mince pies were taken home to be eaten another day! The food was generous and beautifully presented, as…
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Bulbs for year-round colour
At our November meeting we welcomed back the popular Howard Drury of Thedrurys.com with his beautifully illustrated talk on Bulbs for year round colour in the home & garden, including two sequences set to music. It had been postponed from March when he injured his back but was well worth waiting for. As always Howard gave us a wealth of information…
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Building an apple orchard
We welcomed Matthew Nichols from Haywood Park Farm Shugborough, to our October meeting on a damp mild evening. He explained how his family developed their apple growing and juicing business as part of diversification, with his talk covering how to choose a dwarfing rootstock to make picking easier (M26), the grafting process they use, and tips on…
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“Keep them in shape”
At our September meeting we had the welcome return of Philip Aubury former Director of Birmingham Botanic Garden to give a masterclass on the art of pruning. He explained in a very understandable way the “why, what, when and how” including practical demonstrations and some useful tools. We were particularly intrigued by his Darlac Snapper…
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2024 Annual Show
Our Annual Show on Saturday 31st August was a great success in spite of a challenging growing season. There was a beautiful display in the hall, with several first-time entrants and very close scoring. Steve Wroe won the Lewis Cup for the most points in the vegetable classes, presented by Jonathan on behalf of his…
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Bats
We held a brief Special General Meeting on August 13th to update our Constitution, before welcoming Jane Rock of the Staffordshire Bat Group branch of the Bat Conservation Trust with a passionate and fascinating talk about these amazing flying mammals that are more closely related to humans than they are to mice. We could really…
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Hostas
At our July meeting we welcomed Robert Barlow of North Staffordshire Hostas sharing his knowledge of how to choose and care for these perennials, having brought some beautiful exhibition plants and other smaller ones to buy. He showed us how propagation by seed rather than division can result in some unusual results, also how leaf…
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Creepy crawlies, friend or foe?
Our speaker for June, Ken Whittaker, recalled that he was last with us exactly five years ago to the day on 11th June 2019, one of those strange coincidences. This time he gave an amusing talk on the change of approach in the gardening world to what we once considered as “pests”, a wide range…
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AGM & Spring Trip
Rhododenrdons at the end of the 2nd (wet!) tourAt our AGM on Tuesday 14th May the usual reports were received then all the committee who were standing for one more year were re-elected and members endorsed a proposed annual membership fee of £20 for the 2024/25 year. The official business was followed by a quiz…