Hartest & District Gardening Club

We were worried before our Annual Show, that the weather would seriously affect the entries, but as usual we were proved wrong.  The number of exhibits in some vegetable classes were a bit down, but the judge said that the fruit section was “outstanding”.  The Preserves and Cookery section was busy, and the Flower Arrangement classes were absolutely beautiful.  Grown Flowers and Handicraft also gave our judges plenty to think about!  The number of exhibitors and exhibits were back up to pre-pandemic levels, really good.

Roger Quince won the Peter Fisk cup for the most points in the Vegetable section, and the cup for the Vegetable and Fruit sections combined.  Paul Woods made the Fruit section his own this year, winning both the Jubilee cup for the most points in the section, and the Shield for the best exhibit in both the Vegetable and Fruit sections, for his amazing grapes.  Someone will beat you to this some time Paul!  Jill Armstrong won the Cup for the Grown Flowers, and Elizabeth Dunn the Bacon Trophy for the Best Grown Flower exhibit – some beautiful dahlias.  A new name on the trophy, well done.

Annie Robinson won several of the trophies again, for the Handicraft section, the Preserves and Cookery section, and the Bush Boake Allen Cup for the most points across all sections.  Also the Rose Bowl for Flower Arrangements – although Vanessa Turquand-Young was only a couple of points behind her in this section.  But Annie puts more entries in than anybody else – over 30 this year.

The last element of the show was the very successful raffle – thank you to The Crown for their generous prize, which unsurprisingly was chosen by the holder of the first ticket pulled out! 

Photographs of the show and the full set of results will be available on the Show page soon.

Annies Plant of the Month at the September meeting was Anamantheles Lessoniana.  I've tried to find a picture of it, but none of them looked as good as the example that she brought along!  It used to be a Stipa before the re-classifications, and she advised it was very drought tolerant, and had done well this year.

The speaker for the evening was Colin Ward, from Swines Meadow Farm Nursery over in Market Deeping.  It was a great talk, he had brought along a load of plants to show us, his favourites for this time of year.  They ranged from trees to house plants, and included some that we may think of as thugs, but he was showing us cultivars that are very well behaved, just not so easily available.  Several of us took advantage of this, bought them, and saved him the problem of loading them all up to take home again!

The next meeting, on October 3rd, will see a visit from one of the Radio Suffolk Gardening experts, Ruth Goudy.  She will talk about "3 Generations of Suffolk Farmers", a look at her family as they bought the farm and started with fruit, converted to arable, and are now diversifying into a plant nursery.

We will start at 7.30pm.  The entry fee is £2 for members, £3 for visitors, which will include light refreshments.

If you have any questions about the club, please contact Geraldine, either via email on gross7702@gmail.com, or by phone on 01787 280134. 

The two Peter's at the 2016 Show

During the visit to Richmond House in Clare in June, 2016.

Our display in the Church to celebrate the Queen's 90th birthday.