Five members of the group met at leader Mary’s house for a wide-ranging discussion especially on taking cuttings.

We had the usual discussion about sharing plants, seeds and bulbs before Mary led a ‘master class’ in taking cuttings around her garden. Each member of the group was invited to take a cutting home – so generous of Mary. Fuschia cuttings were taken from a stem without flowers, about 4 inches in length, the bottom leaves were stripped off and Mary also cut out the top of the cutting. The stem was put into a pot of compost and the pot went into the greenhouse. Mary uses old plastic lemonade bottles with the bottom cut out as a cover over the pot to give added protection in Winter – providing a mini greenhouse. Cuttings from geraniums were demonstrated and also hydrangeas and pinks.

Enjoying tea and biscuits in their house (rain having set in), Mary’s husband Bob gave us a short talk about pruning roses – a skill he had been taught by his Grandfather; members talked about their individual visits recently to gardens and garden centres and the purchases they had made!

Ideas for our meetings in October and November:

• What to cut back in the garden and when
• Bulbs and when to plant them
• Wallflowers and when to plant them
• Seed catalogues and what to order for next year
• Planning for our gardens and allotments next year
• Ideas for Christmas – presents, decorations, etc

Ideas for our group table at the U3A Open Day next January:

• Create a circular calendar showing photos from our meetings and short descriptions of visits and discussions
• Supply a few gardening books from the charity shop (Bev kindly offered to organise this) for sale
• Perhaps supply a few cuttings in pots and bulbs in pots – also for sale for charity
• Arrange a vase of foliage from the garden (Mary kindly offered to do this) for the table (which could be raffled?)

As a diversion from gardening, members were delighted and amazed to see the hundreds of ‘smoothie hats’ knitted by Burnham WI members including Mary in aid of the charity Age Concern. Look out for these on bottles of smoothies made by Innocent for which a charge of 25p is made.

Liz Smith