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Join us in celebrating our Centenary year.

Writer's picture: ChairChair

The 2025 Programme and Show Schedule should have landed in all members post boxes by now. We have another year full of informative and entertaining events planned and we do hope many of you will join us. There should be something of interest for everyone from plant sales, garden visits, horticultural shows, educational talks and workshops. The highlight of the year will be the Centenary Open Gardens in June and July where members will be able to explore and appreciate some of the particular delights in our own communities. 


January seems to have been rather cold, grey and dull, making for a miserable start to the year if you are keen to get out in the garden. You have to pick your moment but certainly now is the time to get on with pruning fruit trees (apples and pears – not stone fruit) and roses. All of these are best done during the winter while you can examine their structure, and the sap hasn’t yet risen. There are lots of useful guides to pruning particularly on the RHS website. For roses, my go-to is David Austin Roses where they carefully highlight the different pruning techniques for different types of roses depending on their maturity. Always a useful reminder even if you have been pruning for years.  I’ve also been combing through magazines and my favourite seed catalogues looking for new inspiration particularly new varieties of vegetables and cut flowers to grow for this year. Seeds are relatively cheap and allow you to experiment with different colours and varieties.


Common toad
Common toad

Our first talk this year featured the extremely knowledgeable entomologist Andrew Halstead who worked at RHS Wisley for over 40 years. His talk highlighted the many small things that one can do to attract a broader array of wildlife, ranging from tiny springtails in your compost to frogs and toads, into your own gardens. The biggest impact comes from having a pond and that can be just a small tub filled with water and some plants nearby to a proper pond complete with shallow sloping sides, log or rock borders and marsh-loving plants. His other top tips including log piles (best in cool, shady areas), compost heaps, leaving lawns go to wildflower at least along the edges, hedges such as hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) or blackthorn (Prunus spinosa), leaving ivy to grow on trees, nest boxes for birds and bats and some homes of hollow-stemmed plants or bamboo canes for different types of bees. If creating insect habitats, it is important to have them positioned in sunny spots in the garden. And don’t be in too much of a rush to clear your herbaceous borders as the birds and insects will still be enjoying the benefits of seedheads and stems for food, laying their larvae and catching other insects.



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