4th Feb 2011 NEW CHAIRMAN TAKES OVER

Sunday 18th Sept - Vines.  Our Secretary Sarah Bell has the National Collection of Hardy Grape Vines, including both dessert and wine-growing varieties, at her home near Rowlestone.  Today (2.30pm) we visit and see how to grow them.

Monday 3rd October - Gardens of Japan.   Helena Attlee is a scholar of Italian, Iberian and Japanese gardens and has published on them all, working with her husband the photographer Alex Ramsay.  Gardens of Japan  was published last year and tonight – our Celebrity Lecture of the year – she will talk about the age-old British fascination with Japan and its gardens, illustrated by her husband’s stunning photographs.  She lives near Presteigne.

Monday 7th November - All Year Round Shrubs.  The abiding passion for perennials since the 1990s has given shrubs a poor press, which is nonsense.  They help form the structure of a garden and they do not all flower in spring.  With 40 years’ experience as a horticultural lecturer, consultant and broadcaster, Sheena Crossley takes us through a gallery of shrubs that will light up a garden all year round.

Monday 5th December - AGM followed by members' night.  A chance to bring along your  plants and photographs and talk about the plants and places and problems you have seen this year, all made infinitely  easier with help of mince pies and mulled wine.

Monday 9th January - Painswick Rococo Garden.  Paul Moir, Director of the Painswick Rococo Garden Trust, tells us the story of the development of this pretty little mid-18^th century landscape garden in the Cotswolds, its later abandonment, and restoration since the 1970s.  Don’t say you have never been to see the snowdrops?

Monday 6th February - The Garden at The Pant.  Dr Jeremy Swift will talk about the inspiration and development of his extraordinary 25 acre garden at The Pant, Fforest Coalpit, shown to the public for the first time last June.  A well-kept secret.

Monday 5th March - All Our Yesterdays.  Frank Hardy, once Vice Principal of Pershore College of Horticulture and maker of several Chelsea gardens, talks about the changes that have overtaken gardens and gardeners since 1945.  Was it really like that?

Monday 2nd April - Plant Hunting Around the World.  Nick Macer, owner of Pan Global Plants, near Gloucester, talks about his sometimes hair-raising annual expeditions to Mexico, Chile and Vietnam, and the plants he has seen and brought back into cultivation in the UK.

Monday 14th May - Irises for the Natural Garden.  Alun and Jill Whitehead’s nursery, Aulden Farm Plants, lies just west of Leominster.  They specialise in day lilies and  irises (especially the waterside kinds) and have a beautiful garden open under the NGS.