NEWSLETTER APRIL 2022 Next Meeting Wednesday 6th April at 7.45 in the Sports Pavilion OX49 5BZ Speaker: Andrew Halstead Andrew Halstead, who is now retired, was the RHS Principal Entomologist and he will talk about “Beneficial Insects in the Garden”.Attracting insects into our gardens is now recognised as very important and we are always being encouraged to do it, so this talk is timely. Last Meeting: Unfortunately our booked speaker, Paul Barney of Edulis Nursery, had to pull out at the last minute as he had Covid, but fortunately Jo was able to book Sandy Primrose at short notice and he gave us an original and interesting talk entitled “The Language of Flowers”. VISITS: You may remember that at the last meeting we had in March 2020 before everything shut down for Covid the speaker was Roger Askew from Savill Gardens after which we planned a visit there for the Club and he offered to give us a private talk and tour. Well of course it never happened. Now finally we have arranged a visit for May when their famous Rhododendrons should be at their best. These are the details: Thursday 19th May, to arrive at 11am. 11.30 am Guided tour round the garden with Roger Askew if possible, taking approx 1 hour. This will be a car share trip. The address is: Savill Gardens, Wick Lane, Englefield Green, Egham TW20 0UJ. It takes about an hour to get there. We have chosen the morning so that we are not caught up in the evening rush hour on the M25. There are several eating places so anyone can have lunch there too.
The cost is £14.00 for Gardening Club members and £16.00 for visitors. This is in fact a bargain as the normal entry fee is £14.95 and car parking is £3.00/hour. If we all go in at the same time they will endorse our parking tickets so we park for free. At our next meeting there will be a chart for you to indicate if you can give lifts or if you would like a lift.
PLANT TABLE: If any of you have any extra plans to sell do bring them along.
Next Meetings: On Wednesday 4th May we’ve had to make another change to our programme. Patricia Holt will talk to us about The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.
On Wednesday 1st June Marina Christopher of Phoenix Perennial Plants will talk about Umbellifers and Late Summer Perennials. This will be a practical demonstration. You can check speakers on our website: watlingtongardeningclub.co.uk.