June meeting, "Knowing your Orchids".

Lawrence Hobbs and his assistant, Sandra, from Hobbs Orchids Ltd.  Crawley Downs, West Sussex, came laden down with plants, potting compost and various sundries to show the club how to care for orchids. Some club members had bought their sickly plants to find out the causes of the problems. 

Lawrence gave a very informative talk on the various types of orchids available and how to care for them. He demonstrated how to re-pot them several times. The nursery make up their own potting medium, using new bark, preferably pine, mixed with charcoal and large size Pearlite. Originally, Osmunder fibre used to be used, but that is nearly extinct now. In America they re-cycle old tyre shreddings!  There is no food in the potting mix, it is only used to support the plant, therefore plant food needs to be added on a regular basis.  Care has to be taken with watering, Lawrence advises soaking in rainwater until the bubbles stop coming, then draining well. This only needs doing about two weekly.

During the interval, plants, potting medium, pots and special feeds could be purchased.

A lovely selection of orchids.

A common pest that affects orchids is the woolly Aphid. Lawrence advised on treatment for this. The affected plant must be isolated, as it will spread if left near other plants.

Peter, Sandra and Lawrence.

At the end of the evening there was a question session which was interesting, and cleared up many misconceptions about orchids.

Susie & Richards' open garden.

Judith Schultz has left a new comment on your post "Susie & Richards' open garden.":

wow what a fabulous day and turn out - I'm sorry that I missed it - especially looking at those cakes :))) Judyx

Richard & Susie.

Hello, all. It's Hilda, the roving reporter here again. Several of us from Greenfingers Club  went to help out Susie & Richard at their open garden last week. We had all been keeping an eye on the weather as it continued to be cold, wet & windy. However, it surprised us all and turned out to be quite a nice afternoon. The sun even showed itself at times!  The event was very well attended and raised over £700. This included entrance fees, refreshments, plant sales and a "guess the weight of the cake" competition. Susie and Kathy did a lot of baking to make loads of delicious cakes which were very popular. The money went to the Salvation Army and prostate cancer research.

When they moved into their house 12 years ago, the garden was completely grassed over, with only one rose bush and a small tree in it. What a transformation now!  It is divided into 3 sections which lead into each other, making it an interesting garden to be in. There is no actual colour scheme to it, plants are just put into their own part of the garden, either the English garden (for Susie), oriental (for Richard), or the vegetable patch. Richard has trained the fruit trees into interesting shapes to divide the different parts.

                                                        

A smiling Budda in the black bamboo.

Visitors.

The "Guess the Weight" cake.

A lot of delicious cakes for sale.

An aerial view of the garden.

Kathy & Peter.

Happy tea-ladies. Sally, Kathy, Susie, Hilda & Jeanette.

Last but not least, a colourful basket of Heucheras.

May events.

Peter with a BIG spade at the Malvern Show.

Peter visited the Malvern Show in order to see some speakers for next year. He managed to book Leila Jackson, the Abutilon specialist, and also a Heuchera specialist. Leila took the silver for her display, she also featured on the Gardeners' World programme.

Hilda's Uninvited Guest.

Last Tuesday, a neighbour knocked and informed me I had a visitor on my front porch. I looked down, and there was this prickly little fellow!

He showed no inclination to leave, so I found two bowls and gave him some cat food and water. He ate the food ravenously then snoozed. He was still there that night, so I gave him more, which he also ate.  Much to my surprise, he was still there the next morning.  My neighbour made him a Des. Res. from a shoe box, cotton wool & 2 elastic bands. I put it down, and he climbed straight into it!  After cleaning up several lots of poo, and realising he had been nibbling on the insulating foam of the outside tap, I began to think he would be better off in the back garden. As he was still in the box, I carried him through and put the box in a sheltered position together with his bowls.

Yum Yum!

 That night, he was out and about in the garden, hopefully eating up my copious supply of slugs and snails. I am gradually reducing the amount of cat food I am giving him, as I am sure he will find more than enough natural food for his needs there. Another good thing is, he will be safe from the road.

Millbrook & RHS WISLEY- Part 2.

Some other lovely plants are these:

Angraecum subulatum.

Orchid: Irene Finney x Spring Best.

My most favourite flower of them all is the one below, called V. SANSAI BLUE (M). It attracted a lot of attention, so obviously, many people felt the same.

The day raced by, most of us had a meal or snack in one of the restaurants there and soon it was time to wend our way back to the coach, after visiting the shop, of course! This lovely colour co-ordinated container was just outside:

Here is a photo of our most senior member of the club, Millie Winter. She had just returned to the coach and was enjoying a well-earned sit down.

 There was much snoozing on our way back to Dagenham as we all relaxed after a busy day. A good time was had by all.

Millbrook Gardens & RHS Wisley. Part one.

Unfortunately, the weather was rather wet, windy and cold , but I think everybody enjoyed the trip, in spite of that. We went first to the garden centre at Millbrook and made use of their cafe for refreshments. It is a very large centre with a good range of products. Back on the coach, we headed for RHS Wisley. The amount of rain we have had recently was evident in the rich green of the fields and several waterlogged areas.

At Wisley we waited while Peter collected and distributed the tickets and then went our separate ways. There were several very large marquees housing a craft exhibition. The range of things for sale was massive, from large outdoor statues made from materials such as stone, bronze and wire, through knitted goods, glass, wood carvings, paintings and hand made jewellery.

A wire sculpture of a witch.

A wire dragon.

The actual gardens were looking a bit sorry for themselves due to the weather. The bulbs were finishing, but there were still some lovely shrubs and planted containers around. The massive greenhouse provided a welcome break from the rain and cold. Inside, the conditions were tropical, to suit the plant requirements. Here are some photos of the plants which caught my eye:

A lovely orchid.

An orchid and fern display.

April 2012 Meeting.

The hall was a hive of activity at this meeting. Members have started to be booked in, to comply with Health & Safety regulations, so two ladies were doing this at the door and Gina was selling her raffle tickets, as usual. Soon after , the competition fuchsias arrived, this year they are "Walz Jubelteen", a pretty pinky/mauve upward facing variety. Instruction sheets were given out with them. They will be returned in August for judging, as Peter says, dead or alive!

David and Gwen Bendall selling a fuchsia to Kath Dawes

 Jean and Tim from Longhouse Plants were there with a lot of plants for sale. 

Tim also did a very interesting talk on plants in general, climate problems and how they affected his business, details about specific plants he had for sale, and also a question and answer session. Here are some of the plants they had bought:

A sunny Primrose.

An unusual Rhododendron

A lovely collection of plants for sale.

During the break several people took the opportunity to speak to Tim, we had our usual refreshments and the raffle was called.

Jean & Tim amid the plants.

Tim, Peter, Richard 
and Marion Travers

This blog is open to  everybody to contribute to, it would be great if more people did so. Just e-mail Peter (railtonspecial@live.com), or see Jeanette or Hilda at the club meetings or outings.
On the bottom right of the blog is a place to access older Blogs, just click it & you can see previous items.

I thought we might start a section on helpful tips. Here is the first one, from me:

When taking cuttings or pricking out seedlings, to save using so many plant labels, try using different coloured straws. Cut them into about 4 pieces each, put one piece into each pot or tray of seedlings, also one bit into the "mother" plant with the label, or ensure every different tray has at least one label with its' straw, or you won't know which is which! Here is my competition fuchsia which I took some cuttings from, to give you an idea:

The cuttings are draining, prior to being put into an unheated propagator. Note the straws. If you run out of different colours to use, different coloured straws can be combined.