Monday 31 March 2008

Tulip Festival at Pashley Manor Gardens


We are organising a trip to Pashley Manor Gardens to visit the Tulip Festival on Saturday 3rd May-meeting in The East Malling Institute car park [behind the King & Queen pub] at 10.15 a.m. The entry fee is £7.50-no concessions.

The event advertising says: "The Festival originated to celebrate the 400th anniversay of the tulip's arrival in Europe for Persia and has gone from strength to strength since its inception.

Now in it's 14th year, the Festival gives visitors the chance to lose themselves among the 20,000 blooms gracing this quintessential English Garden.

Each area of the garden holds stunning displays; some 90 varieties are shown from the vibrant red and hot orange coloured tulips in the herbaceous borders to the cream, white, pale golden yellow and apricot tulips in the Elizabethan Garden and the pink and white tulips along the Terrace."

Those of you who wish to come along meet as stated above then we can arrange to car share, although if you prefer to make your own way there, just let me know. The gardens are open at 11.00 a.m.

Sunday 30 March 2008

Strawberry Fields Forever

On Tuesday 15th April Dr David Simpson of East Malling Research Station will be coming to deliver a lecture to the gardening club.

The talk will be entitled "Strawberry Breeding at East Malling-Past, Present and Future" It will take place at St James the Great Primary School in Chapman Way, East Malling at 7.30 p.m.

Anyone is welcome to attend, you do not have to be a member of the gardening club, but a contribution of just £2 each to cover hall hire would be appreciated please.

Dr Simpson last delivered this lecture to the RHS. It covers the principles of breeding, how varieties change and why, the best varieties for gardeners and tips on how to cultivate strawberries, propagate them and deal with pests and diseases.

Sunday 24 February 2008

Events in March and April '08

Sunday 16th March, 10am to 4pm.

We will be running a "plant swap" stall at the East Malling Community Day, held at The Malling School.

We will also be giving away free Sunflower seeds for a "grow the tallest Sunflower" competition.


Late April / early May

We hope to have a speaker from East Malling Research come and visit us to give a lecture. More details to follow.

Broadview Garden visit 24th Feb '08

A display of some of the Hellebores grown at Broadview.
The Gardening Club visited the wonderful National Hellebore Collection held at Broadview Garden, which is part of Hadlow College.

We were part of a tour of the gardens and our guide was the extremely knowledgeable Alex Rennie, shown on the right in the photo below.


We also saw some excellent examples of companion planting that really brought the most out of each group of Hellebores.


Hellebore border interspersed with Snowdrops.

One of the beautiful Hellebores.

Southover Garden visit 10th Feb '08

Snowdrops by the stream at Southover.

On Sunday 10th February, the Gardening Club visited the beautiful Snowdrop collection at Southover, in Hunton.

The garden is privately owned, but is opened to the public several times each year.

We were lucky to see many of the 170 different varieties of Snowdrop that have been planted by David Way, the owner of Southover.

Some Gardening Club members talking to one of the garden owners.