Six members of the group met at member Bev’s house in Ramblers Way on 20 April. Many topics were touched on before we explored the interesting, pretty, north-facing garden. Bev and her husband moved into the property two years ago and have put a huge amount of effort into transforming the garden.

Members spent some time identifying the many and various plants in the main bed, admiring the pond – built in the last two years – and large display of flowering marsh marigolds, studying the vegetable section which is fenced off from the dog! and contains 5 raised beds of approximately 6’ x 4’ planted up with a variety of seeds in top soil bought in for the purpose, looking closely at the Kiftsgate rose cutting, brought from Bev’s former home in Devon, planted and now being trailed over a structure and admiring the beautiful flowering cherry in the middle of the garden – a gem. It is worth mentioning that local tree expert, Ross Fowler, has done a lot of work in the garden as part of the transformation.

Our discussions ranged over gardening and also other topics. Bev showed the group pictures on her tablet of her Dracunculus Vulgaris in full flower; sometimes called a dragon arum or black dragon. We discussed various problem plants and passed tips to each other on how best to deal with them; Bev is trying nematose in powder form to discourage slugs which are a big problem for us all.

Chris mentioned that the Co-op were selling 60L bags of compost (3 bags for £10) and that the Co-op would deliver them provided that the total spend was £25 or more. It was mentioned that U3A members could apply for tickets to talks at the Royal Institution in London and that they could be fascinating, even for non-scientists – The U3A website would have details of the next talks in September. We talked about propagating roses and took tips from each other on this. Some members love propagating plants and it was suggested that any left-over plants could be offered to members at a U3A meeting with the proceeds going to charity. We talked about books (not just those devoted to gardening) and noted that the St Mary’s Church book sale will take place on 4 May and also that Abe Books is an excellent on-line second hand book site for acquiring but also for valuing books.

The Group plans to meeting in another member’s house and garden in May.

Liz Smith