July 2012 meeting
This month, the speaker was Geoff Hodge, writer and broadcaster. He gave us a most entertaining and informative talk on "Pruning for All". After telling us about his career path, which involved him being made redundant from his post as a Web Editor by the RHS, then asking him to write a book for them, he followed the path of a free lance writer, broadcaster, and lecturer, contributing to radio programmes for Radio Essex, gardening magazines and many television programmes. He brought four books with him and offered to sign them for anybody purchasing them (at a discounted rate).

Geoff Hodge.

He had bought a lot of suitable equipment with him, also some twigs and branches to demonstrate with. The problems involved with incorrect cutting, or pruning at the wrong time of the year were explained.

An impressive array of pruning tools.

A generous donation was made to the raffle, and there were a lot of seeds, both flowers and vegetable, for us to help ourselves to.

He stressed the importance of using sharp and clean tools, to minimize the chance of causing an infection to the shrub or tree being pruned, which could potentially prove fatal. Feeding after pruning was also advised, to help the shrub or tree to gain strength.

Some of the books co-written by Geoff.

After the tea interval and the raffle being called, he answered some questions and continued with his demonstrations of correct pruning. We all came away much more knowledgeable than when we arrived.

Peter had some important things to tell us about activities within the club. Firstly, his garden has been accepted by the National Garden Scheme, or "The Yellow Book", as it is commonly known, to be open to visitors from next year. Congratulations to him. What a great achievement!

Being the glutton for punishment that he is, he and Kathy are opening their garden this year, on Friday August 17th, from 2pm to 5pm, to raise funds for both the Greenfingers Club and the Salvation Army.

In case you have forgotten, their address is 6, Elms Gardens, Dagenham, Essex. RM9 5TX.

Kathy will start baking her famous, delicious cakes again, and tea and coffee will be available. Everybody is welcome to attend, the more the merrier. It is only a few weeks away, so put it in your diary.

He also informed everybody about the newsletter that Jeanette and I, (Hilda), will be producing from next month. We felt that many of the members without computers and internet access were missing out, so this is in an effort to address that problem. It will consist of the things that are on the blog, news and snippets of items of interest, also a puzzle or quiz of some sort. We have yet to decide how frequently it will be published. That will rather depend on how well, or not, it is received, and feedback from members. A small charge of 20p is envisaged, to cover the cost of paper and ink.