Healthy Eating (16-11-15)
David Thornton may earn his living working for a company that provides food for animals, but he is also very knowledgeable about human animals too!
Just to show how interested he is about growing good food, it is worth noting that his allotment growing has provided him a parsnip good enough to make him this year's National Champion. Oh, and 2nd place in celery.
But what are the facts about Healthy Eating?
Well, look below at some of the facts provided by him at this evening's Gardening Club Meeting at the Old School. Memorable points include:
- fresh frozen food is better than 'fresh veg' that is a few days old
- there is no evidence that organically grown food is better than non-organically grown crops
- the trace element, selenium, is not provided by our fruit and veg (take a tablet?)
Tony Jarrow
Walled Garden at Clumber Park (19-10-15)
When you know that you are going to hear a talk by the Head Gardener of the Walled Garden of a Country House set in 3,800 acres, it is difficult not to imagine stepping into the set of Downton Abbey.
But, for Head Gardener Christopher Magrave, the 'set' is in fact very, very different.
He works at Clumber Park and whilst he can find himself with over 50 people working alongside him in the Kitchen Garden, all but 3 will be volunteers. This no doubt makes the job even more demanding—but, at the same time, far more rewarding for both him and the volunteers.
His illustrated talk gave us the "how and why" of walled gardens over the last 300 years.
Whilst the decline of these gardens, the houses and their owners was made invevitable, not only by the World Wars of the 20th Century, but also by technological and economic developments, Christopher Margrave and his helpers are managing to maintain a traditional Walled Kitchen Garden at Clumber Park.
In addition they are also restoring structures like the giant glasshouse making use of both traditonal features and modern technology.
We in Cropwell Bishop may not be able to compete with Clumber Park, but by the end of the evening, members of the Gardening Club had a good idea of what a walled garden had to offer.
There were had tips on what features and plants they might be able to incorporate into their own garden—albeit on a much smaller scale!
Tony Jarrow
Trees and Shrubs (22-9-15)
It can take decades for trees and shrubs to mature so choosing the right ones for our garden is surely more important than selecting next year's tulip and daffodil bulbs.
At last night's meeting of the Gardening Club at the Old School, we were given tips to help us make our selection by professional landscaper, Steve Lovell, who dashed down the Fosse Way from Lincoln with both advice and a range of plants for sale.
Together with many photographs of examples of all kinds of trees and shrubs from all over Britain and the World, we were given a quick lesson in lesson in Latin as Steve reeled off their names in full.
We may not recall every bit of advice he gave us, but next time we visit the Garden Centre, but we might well give a bit more thought to what we are choosing.
Tony Jarrow
Harlow Carr (23-8-15)
What a beautiful day at Harlow Carr. On our 5th visit to this flagship garden of the RHS the sun finally shone all day!
It was great to see how the old favourites are doing; the beautiful long lawn and herbaceous borders wild flower planting, the vegetable garden, the alpine house and the scented garden all wonderful to visit. And there's always new interest and features. This years theme was "Alice in Wonderland" with a Mad Hatters Tea Party, topiary figures of Alice, the Mad Hatter and all the characters plus real life White Rabbits and a very tall human White Rabbit.
For me the stars of the show were the sunflowers and couldn't stop photographing them as you can see!
As always, no visit to Harlow Carr is complete without a visit to Betty's Tearoom. This year enjoyed on the veranda overlooking the lawns and lake listening to the band.
A wonderful day…thank you Sue and Muriel for organising the visit.
Judy Thomas
Roses and Rhododendrons at Woodpeckers (23-8-15)
Mark and Lyn Carr were our hosts on Wednesday evening 5th August at Woodpeckers in Burton Joyce.
Woodpeckers is Lyn's childhood home which she inherited from her parents.When she met and married Mark he told her he liked a challenging project and so began their development of this 4 acres of mature woodland and formal gardens with spectacular views over the Trent Valley.
Mark enjoys "Gardening by Machinery" This is evident by the newly formed three large conecting pools and the planting of 500 rhododendrons and azaleas. 72 of these were planted on the hottest day of this year.
There is a new scented rose tunnel leading from the main lawn to the wisteria arbour. Other features are a glade with 200 yr-old cedars overlooking the ponds, waterfalls and croquet lawn,bog garden and sunken area below ha-ha, then onwards towards ancient well and a magnificent new greenhouse.
Tea and delicious cakes were enjoyed in the sun lounge and gazebo.
Judy Thomas
Winning Containers (29-7-15)
There may not have been a Container Planting Competition this year but the Cropwell Bishop Gardening Club members have certainly planted some beautiful containers,hanging baskets,tubs and massed pots.
Certainly winners all.
Many thanks to all members who sent in their photographs.
Judy Thomas
