​

---

ESTABLISHED 1892

Our 2019 Programme of Talks, outings and events

​JANUARY	Thursday 10th        "Space & Climate Change"                            Tony Davies
FEBRUARY	Thursday 14th       "Snowdrops"                                                    Lyn Miles
MARCH	​Thursday 14th       "Dahlias"                                                           Geoff Jeans AGM and SPRING SHOW​
​APRIL	​Thursday 11th       "Bonsai Spring Care"                                       Tony Moore
MAY	Thursday 9th          "How to impress the photographic Judge"    Bob Indge Saturday 11th  ​SPRING PLANT & JUMBLE SALE – Stalbridge Hall, 10.30am.
JUNE	​Thursday 13th        "From Garden boy to Woodland Supervisor"  Geoff Greenhaugh ROSE COMPETITION
JULY	Thursday 11th          ​Evening Outing
AUGUST	Thursday 8th            "Preparing Flowers & Produce for the Show"     Geoff Jeans et al Saturday 17th            ANNUAL PRODUCE & FLOWER SHOW, Stalbridge Hall, 2.30pm
SEPTEMBER	Thursday 12th      " New Tricks for Old Gardeners"                                 Katherine Crouch and members DAHLIA COMPETITION
OCTOBER	Thursday 10th        "Seeds & More Plants for Free"                                 Neil Lovesey APPLE COMPETITION
NOVEMBER	Thursday 14th        "Gardens of World War 1"                                          Christine Stones
DECEMBER	Thursday 12th  Home Grown Quiz and CHRISTMAS BUFFET

Stalbridge Garden Society Annual Produce, Craft & Flower Show 2019 was held on Saturday 17th August. During the previous evening and the morning of the show, the halls slowly filled with exhibits of all colours, shapes and sizes, from miniature flower displays to decorated wheelbarrows; from beetroots to bonsai.  More than 60 exhibitors put on a display featuring in excess of 400 items, giving the five judges a huge but pleasant challenge.
Despite the vagaries of the recent weather, there were lots of entries achieving a very high standard, as usual, including in the childrens’ sections.
26 impressive trophies were there for the winning, and the displays did not disappoint!
The newest trophy in the cabinet was presented in memory of long-time member Bev Hall, by her husband, Ray.  The trophy, a carved outline of a tree, framed in a beautiful bowl, all contained in one piece of wood and called ‘Bev’s Bowl’ was presented for the best Rose in the show and was won by Marigold Edwards.

Although advertised as opening at 2.30.pm, there was a queue at 2.15pm, so the doors were opened.
A ‘Peoples Choice’ exercise was undertaken to decide the best exhibit in the whole show. Visitors were invited to vote for their favourite. The prize was a £15 voucher kindly presented by Williams’ Florist and was won with a beautiful quilt, hand-made by Wendy Bailey.
The village Hanging Basket competition saw 12 entries this year, - the most ever - competing for the William Dike Memorial Cup. This was judged and photographed ahead of the show by the management of Dikes, who also kindly provided Dikes Vouchers for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places. The winner was Wendy Bailey.

The spread of trophy winners was wide; the overall winner was Chris Jeans who was presented with the Westminster Rose Bowl for most points across the whole show, although there were only 6 points separating 1st and 3rd.
The trophies were presented by our Postmaster, Paul Wavish, wearing best bib and tucker, a sight many villagers hadn’t seen before! The organisers thank everyone for making the show such a success: club members, exhibitors, judges, our photographers, visitors and our guest of honour, Paul Wavish.

Many thanks to Wendy Bailey, who took the 'pre-judged' show pictures, and to John Foster-Pegg for the photos of the trophy winners.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY CLASSES
FOR NEXT YEAR’S
ANNUAL PRODUCE, CRAFT & FLOWER SHOW
TO BE HELD ON AUGUST 15th 2020
 
ADULT CLASSES
POPPIES.
TREE REFLECTED IN WATER.
SUNFLOWER.
RAINBOW.
PLANTER - PLANTED TUB.
 
CHILDREN’S CLASSES
WILD FLOWERS.
AN INTERESTING GATE OR GATES.

2019
October Meeting
Tony Moore, our chairman, welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave out the notices , sadly one of which was the loss of one of the our long term members, Ann Mattock, who ran the teas for a good number of years, she will be a great loss to us. Her funeral is later this month.
The next item was that Geoff Jeans and Michelle Howell would be stepping down from the show committee after around fifteen years each, working on the running of our annual show, Tony thanked them for all of their hard work.
Our speaker for the evening was Neil Lovesey, an old favourite, who is always a fountain of knowledge. Recently he has been unwell, and so it was lovely to see him back on the speaker’s circuit.
His talk was entitled “Seeds and more plants for free”, and he began by explaining to us  how plants and all manner of life are divided into Kingdoms, and then this is broken down into sub divisions and so on.
Plantia- all plant life, Phylum- family –genus, then species-cultivars. He then explained because of cross pollination, seeds could all come out different to the parent plant. A bit like us humans coming from different parts of the world.
Neil went into great depth on the subject of cross pollination, and how cross pollination effects most plants, if you have one a single plant in your garden and no others in the area , then there is a possibility that the seed may come true, but generally each seed ,due to cross pollination,  may vary. So from a nurseryman’s point, it is almost impossible to label each young plant as being identical, and until it flowers you just don’t know.
Stem, root and leaf cuttings from the parent plant, now these should all come true, so therefore it makes labelling much easier, and some plants are sterile, so vegetative means i.e. cuttings and layerings, are the only way to make more of the same plant which are guaranteed.
Some plants like Aquilegias have a dominant colour, like purple, so therefore seedlings are quite often this colour: as we all know Hellebore seedling seem to produce a wide range of colours and do not come true to the parent plant, due to being found in most gardens!
Neil explained to us how best to collect seed, dry it and store it for a good success rate. He then explained to us how variegation on plants and shrubs came about, and finally how toxic plants and seeds can kill.
Finishing on when and where to sow seed for the best results, and don’t forget that when a seed has germinated, that is just the easy part, it then has to be carefully looked after to survive.
Another inspiring talk from Neil, who I’m sure is one of the country’s experts. We all enjoyed this fascinating subject!
This month was also the members’ apple competition, kindly judged by Chris Wiles, so a big thank you to him, and to his new steward, Murray Robinson. Thank you to Geoff for arranging it all.
The results are as follows;-
Cooking Apples
1st- Angela Flavell; 2nd - Joan Bryan.
Dessert Apples
1st - Denis Ketcher;  2nd - Michelle Howell; 3rd - Murray Robinson; h/c Tony Moore.
Well done and thank you to all of you who took part, it is always a sign of autumn, when we see the apples, but at the moment there does not seem to be much sign of autumn colour just a great deal of rain!
Enjoy the harvest season, and come along and join us next month at the hall to hear a talk on “Gardens of World War 1” with Christine Stones, on Thursday 14th November, time 7.30pm.
 
Michelle Howell.                                                                            

The Society, established in 1892, meets on the second Thursday of each month
in Stalbridge Hall at 7.30.pm 

Why not come and join us?
We would love to see you.
​
Annual subscription £10.00
or just come as a visitor for £2 per evening.

Each month we have a talk by an expert
 on an aspect of gardening or garden related topic.
Alongside some of our talks we hold
season-related informal competitions.

Just come along,
or for more information please telephone:

Tony: 01963 365848

Look at the map below to see where the Hall is in Stalbridge