Meeting Reports 2021

NOVEMBER

VEGGING OUT WITH ADAM

Our last meeting of the year, started with our AGM – at least we were able to meet in person this time! With official business quickly over, Adam Alexander began his talk about the vegetable garden he has created since 2014 in a gently sloping, south-facing field. He began by creating raised beds, his favoured method of growing. Planting began even before all 14 beds were finished. He reduced weeding by covering as much soil as possible, planting through black mulch. Two polytunnels were added, a greenhouse and cold frames. He maximises the favourable growing conditions in his poiytunnels by growing in succession, starting with new potatoes in late February.

However, Adam is not just growing to feed himself and Julia, his wife, but to harvest seed of endangered varieties. As a Seed Guardian for the Garden Organic Heritage Seed Library he has saved seeds of many endangered varieties from all over the world. He is passionate and knowledgeable about the importance of conserving genetic diversity in edible crops. So, as well as giving much useful guidance on growing vegetables for ourselves, he explained how he overcomes the challenges of avoiding cross-pollination to produce pure seed, using the polytunnels to grow crops in isolation. Another ingenious solution to growing seed of the old and delicious runner bean, Stenner, was to give all his neighbours a packet of pure seed to grow! Adam is a self-confessed vegaholic but his addiction is benefitting us all.

OCTOBER

GARDENING WITHOUT PLASTIC

At our October meeting, Sally Nex gave us all a lot to think about as she shared her experience of working towards making her garden as free of plastic as possible. We now realise that what makes plastic so useful is also what makes it such a problem – its indestructibility. Plastic takes 400 years to fully degrade. In the process, it leaves its particles in our soil. It’s ingested by earthworms, reducing their usefulness and enters the food chain. Recycling is not the answer. Each time plastic is recycled its quality reduces. Eventually, it still becomes plastic waste. So we must reduce its use.

What should gardeners do? It’s not necessary to throw out all your plastic. Sally started by resolving not to introduce any new plastic into her garden. She has continued to use a sturdy and serviceable plastic watering can, for example, but now makes her own small pots from paper and cardboard for sowing and growing on young plants. She showed us various ways to do this and revealed that she has found plants get off to a better start, making stronger roots in her homemade pots than they did in plastic ones. So a win on all fronts.

Sally would be the first to admit she is not yet a completely plastic free gardener but her example is inspirational. Hopefully, gardeners will follow her lead, become more plastic aware and aim to reduce its use – for the sake of our soils, and ourselves.

SEPTEMBER

BEAUTIFUL BORDERS & A REAL MEETING AT LAST!

On a lovely September evening, we were treated to an inspiring talk by Laura Wilgos of Wildegoose Nursery in Shropshire. She took us through the principles of planning a border that stays looking good from Spring to late Autumn, using a succession of mainly perennial plants. Laura shared advice about preparing the soil before planting, as well as on maintenance. We saw wonderful photographs of borders at Wildegoose, and at Dove Cottage Nursery, in Yorkshire, which had inspired her.

Before starting to plant, she suggested, it’s important to have a strong concept (an artistic vision) of what you want a border to look like. For her, colour and colour combinations are key. Also essential is contrast – of foliage, flower and shape. Borders need a mix of vertical accents (spikes) and horizontals, plants with wider flowerheads, like Achillea. Add plants that don’t have dense textures to interweave. Include the daisy family - Echinaceas, Asters and Rudbeckias provide late colour. Grasses act as punctuation in the border, starting slowly as a green foil for early flowers and then having their moment in late summer and into autumn. Every border needs a ‘prima donna’ plant or two – but not too many of them. Keeping the border attractive through a succession of different plants as the season progresses is more effective.

Our first in person meeting since March 2020, ended with quite a few of us carrying a Wildegoose plant or two home with us and dreaming of next year’s beautiful borders!

MAY

Our speaker in May was George Lockwood, who took us through a dizzying list of bulbs growing at Highgrove through spring and summer. We saw photos of daffodils small and large, in shades of deep and lemon yellow and purest white and tulips of many hues, in small groups and great expanses. There were stunning Crown Imperial fritillaries, tiny, blue Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow), Erythroniums (Dog’s Tooth Violet) alliums, anemones and cyclamen. George stressed the importance of deadheading to stop plants wasting resources on making seed (unless you want them to, of course.) However, it was hard to imagine that, even with the gardener power available at Highgrove, there would be time to deadhead all those massed bulbs!

George included some growing advice as he went along. Particularly important was to put a handful of grit at the bottom of the planting hole when planting tulips. This makes it much more likely that the bulbs will overwinter without rotting and flower next year. He ended his talk by sharing some of his favourite plants with us, and some of his favourite gardens to visit. There were some stunning photos of bluebell woods – but, of course, we do have some pretty stunning ones not too far away!

MARCH

We enjoyed a fascinating talk about Hestercombe Garden at our March meeting. Claire Greenslade, who has been working there for 13 years, shared some excellent photos of the ambitious work that has gone on to restore the garden. She also talked about the experience of gardening there over the last year. With a very small team, usually two, many jobs had to be left undone. The upside was wildlife becoming bolder and more visible in the absence of visitors. We began the evening with a slide show of spring flowering plants in members’ gardens. This can still be enjoyed on the website.