Our 77th Annual Flower and Produce Show is taking place next Saturday 14th August at Colwall Village Hall! Please support this event by entering some of the classes and coming along on Saturday from 2pm – 5pm. This year it is free to enter as we are keen just to get people back together and to have fun. The show schedule, entry form (and more details) can be found on the Summer Show 2021 tab above or picked up from the Old Court Nursery or John Goodwin Estate Agents in the village. Entry forms must be returned to Helen Picton by Thursday 12th.
We are delighted to announce that in September we are returning to face to face meetings in the village hall! Our speaker is Sally Gregson, from Mill Cottage Plants in Somerset who will be talking about ‘Shady Ladies and Damp Damsels’: suggestions for those difficult spots from dry shade under trees to heavy damp areas. More details nearer the time.
The Percy Picton Memorial Lecture is going ahead at The Elms School on Monday 4th October! James Alexander Sinclair’s talk, ‘Bucolic Bliss’ is the story behind the creation both of his garden and other country gardens he has created. Tickets will only cost £10 as we don’t expect to put on a drinks reception to avoid congregating in the hall entrance. Tickets will go on sale shortly – more details to follow.
August’s meeting was held on zoom. ‘Climbers and Other Garden Favourites’ with Jim Almond. We all love the heights of beauty given by climbing plants and Jim brought his considerable experience and knowledge to this engaging talk to show us their versatility and diversity of form, and the considerable range of seasons for which we can find these flowering species. Whether needed for cloaking fences or softening the hard edges of buildings Jim showed us with lovely photographs all the possibilities and pitfalls, the easy to grow and the rewarding challenges. It may have sent others, like me, to their new plant lists to note the 3 pruning regimes of Clematis or mark the potential mistakes, too vigorous or too freely suckering in limited space. Take care with “The Fence Breaker” Clematis armandii , and I hadn’t realised that my pretty winter flowering Clematis cirrhosa might in the future be pushing through the cracks in the paving! It wasn’t all just Clematis though, and we were reminded of the of plants to scramble over or climb through others or, like some wisteria, to be grown free standing if space allows. After the climbers came the favourites and it was excellent to see examples of flowering beauty to lift us from the gloom of winter through to the richness of summer and autumn, including some useful detail on varieties of Galanthus and Camassia. Thanks to Jim we know that we can enjoy every month in the garden wherever we are.
Thanks to Sue for her reflections on Jim’s talk. Jim’s plant list can be found by clicking on this link.
Click here for Jim’s plant list
On behalf of the WCHS committee, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible next Saturday at the show. Let’s hope the sun shines!
Liz Thomas
Wyche & Colwall Horticultural Society 