Posts by
Pamela Adams
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The Potty Plotters
Julia and Elaine know how to entertain an audience as Ticknall Garden Club discovered when they attended their March meeting. They are a couple of larger-than-life personalities who have developed a loyal following on Radio Derby and their podcasts under the striking title of The Potty Plotters. They challenged the audience to answer questions in…
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Dierama, the Hairbells of Africa
Dierama plants have the reputation of being difficult to grow. Ruth Plant came to the July meeting of Ticknall Garden Club hoping to persuade otherwise. She has a large collection of dierama growing in her Stafford Garden. In fact, she now cares for the National plant collection. They are evergreen, clump forming plants with long…
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Growing and Showing Bonsai
All the best things come in little packages, so they say and Rodney Young aimed to prove it when he came to the June 2023 meeting of Ticknall Garden Club. He has perfected the art of growing bonsai trees over many years and the examples he displayed were impressive in shape and variety. The art…
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The World of Ferns
Neil Timm came to the May meeting of Ticknall Garden Club on 8 May 2023 to talk about a rather underrated group of plants, the world of ferns. They are quite unlike any other plants in that they do not produce flowers and seeds but spores. On a warm summer’s day their fronds bend and…
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Ticknall Garden Club
Green Fingers? Or just green with envy at other people’s success? Whatever your involvement in horticultural pursuits you will be made most welcome at the regular meetings of the Ticknall Garden Club. The club was established in 1990 and has over 100 members. Knowledgeable speakers cover a wide variety of topics of interest to experienced…
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A Year of Flowers
Karen Gimson made an unscheduled return visit to Ticknall Garden Club on February 14th. She is well known for her gardening chats on Radio Leicester and her column in Garden News. While knowledgeable on all garden matters, she is particularly interested in the use of garden flowers to decorate the home. She devotes two greenhouses…
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Bugs & Slugs, Spots & Rots
John Scrace was the first speaker of 2023 at the January meeting of Ticknall Garden Club. He came with in-depth knowledge of pests and diseases that can plague the plants in our gardens. He is a freelance pathologist whose advice can be readily accessed on the Royal Horticultural Society website. www.rhs.org.uk He started with the…
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Flowers Every Day of the Year
Karen Gimson came to talk to Ticknall Garden Club at their November meeting. As well as being a garden designer she broadcasts on gardening topics at Radio Leicester and writes articles for Garden News. Her wide experience was very evident as she interspersed her talk with very practical advice. She set out to show that…
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Well-known Gardener Comes to Ticknall
Chris Beardshaw proved to be a popular speaker at Ticknall Garden Club’s October meeting. There was a full house to hear what the well-known gardening personality had to say. He believed that gardening links lives together; giving satisfaction and a purpose to life. He would also show how driving ambition can achieve success against all…
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Encouraging Wildlife Friends into the Garden
Steve Lovell from Lincolnshire has always combined his passion for nature with his horticultural career of thirty years. In fact he is about to publish a nature diary written during covid called Clowns to Cuckoos. He came to the July meeting of Ticknall Garden Club to talk about encouraging wildlife into our gardens. He emphasised…
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Monkey Cups, Hens ‘n Chicks and Fresh Air
Ticknall Garden Club was treated to a highly entertaining presentation at their June meeting. Doug Stewart travelled from Beverley in Yorkshire to convince us that keeping houseplants was a rewarding experience. He pointed out that it can evolve into a long-lasting love for gardening as happened in his own case. He started by explaining how…
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No Plot? No Problem!
Philip Aubury came to Ticknall Garden Clubs meeting in May to reassure his audience that there is plenty of scope for planting even without a garden. He included the use of gro-bags, pots, hanging baskets, plastic bags, raised beds and window boxes with lots of useful advice along the way. Tomatoes are ideal subjects for…
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Showing and Growing Herbs
Malcolm Dickson from Hooksgreen Herb Nursery near Stone came to talk at Ticknall Garden Club’s April meeting. He traced his progress from selling bedding plants on market stalls to establishing a successful Nursery selling herbs. During that journey, he was the first to introduce, the now staple, cosmos to the gardener. Along the way, he…
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Perfume in the Garden
Nick Bailey, a familiar face on Gardener’s World, attracted a sell-out attendance at Ticknall Garden Club’s March meeting. He came to talk about the place of perfumed plants in the garden. His first task was to explain why plants might have a scent at all. Mainly it is there to attract insects for pollination purposes.…
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Hardy Geraniums
Gary Carroll came to the February meeting of Ticknall Garden Club to talk about geraniums. But it did not involve the bright and showy bedding plants with which we are so familiar. Gary grows 142 varieties of the humble hardy geranium at his Cranesbill Nursery in Walsall. Hardy geraniums are widespread around the globe in…
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Life as a Head Gardener
Ticknall Garden Club enjoyed a most interesting talk on the working life of a head gardener at its January meeting. After gaining qualifications in horticulture and landscape design, Pip Smith worked as Head Gardener at three different prestigious locations before now branching out into his own garden design business. He first worked at Winterbourne House…
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Over the Garden Wall
Ticknall Garden Club attracted a good attendance on Tuesday, October 12th with an audience keen to hear all about plants that are suitable for putting by fences and garden walls. Janette Merilion was the speaker with all the answers. With many years experience in gardening and garden design, she was well qualified to do so.…
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Back to Basics in the Garden
Ticknall Garden Club anticipated that an interesting evening was in store on Tuesday, November 9th when Darren Rudge came to give a talk entitled “Teabags, Bras and Tights”. They were not disappointed. His theme of sustainability in the garden and a return to many of the forgotten ways of the past met with interest and approval. …
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Garden Club – Together Again
Members of Ticknall Garden Club met together on Tuesday, 14th September for the first time since February 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic tragically caused the shutdown of normal social activity. A good attendance indicated that people were keen to return to some semblance of normality and they were warmly welcomed to the evening event. A…
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Wonderful Agapanthus
There was a packed audience in Ticknall Village Hall on March 10th when Steve Hickman came to talk about The World of Agapanthus. Regarded by many as the most beautiful of flowers, all were keen to find out the best way to care for them. Steve holds the national collection of agapanthus at his home…
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The Wonderful World of Weeds
One might have thought that Sally Smith had come to Ticknall Garden Club on February 11th to convert the audience to love the weeds in their gardens, but this was not the case. With years of experience working at Ryton Organic Garden, she understandably had a forgiving attitude to them, but she showed that coping…
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The Beauty of Bromeliads
Plants, but not as we know them! Don Billington came to Ticknall Garden Club’s January meeting and opened eyes to a group of plants that thrive with little or no root system. Called bromeliads, they derive their food from sun and moisture. They are popular as house plants but in the wilds of places like…
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Planting Perennials
A perennial is a plant that continuously grows throughout its life. Therefore grass, ferns, bamboo and even shrubs and trees are technically perennials. Steve Lovell, who came to talk to Ticknall Garden Club in November, concentrated mainly on what would be called herbaceous perennials. Steve Lovell came from Lincolnshire to pay his return visit to…
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Plant Genetic Manipulation
Gardeners like nothing better than browsing through a tempting new catalogue crammed full of colourful plants; some dependable traditional varieties but often something different labelled as new. We are very unlikely to wonder how these new plants come on to the market and why there is such a wide variety to choose from. A visit…
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The Alpine Garden
The secret of success in making a garden to suit alpine plants is all in the construction and the maintenance thereafter. At least this was the message that Jeff Bates was keen to get across at his talk to Ticknall Garden Club at their meeting on July 9th. Think Dovedale with its craggy rock outcrops…
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A Tale of Two Gardeners
The last two talks at Ticknall Garden Club in May and June have featured two dedicated gardeners who have been very successful in their careers. They can transmit their enthusiasm for their love of plants so well that listeners are persuaded to buy plants that they never thought they needed! They both established their garden…
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Garden Gems
The last two talks at Ticknall Garden Club have concentrated on the small flowers that often go unappreciated in the garden. Dr Andrew Ward from Norwell Nurseries near Newark identified some of the little gems that can shine in the shade of a woodland floor. The primrose and lungwort are early flowering plants that provide…
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Everything’s coming up roses
It was roses all the way when Stuart Dixon gave his illustrated talk to Ticknall Garden Club at its February meeting. Perhaps surprisingly the rose family is the biggest in the plant world and includes such diverse members as the apple, strawberry, hawthorn, spirea, lady’s mantle and cotoneaster. Examples exist in the oldest fossils on…
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Gardeners United
Ticknall Garden Club enjoyed a double helping of garden delights at its January meeting. Not only did it play host to Tony Kirkham who is head of the Arboretum at Kew Gardens but it was also given advance notice of an exciting new gardening book due to be published in May. The book The Apprehensive…
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Garden Club Holidays
One of the highlights of the year is the annual Garden Club Holiday. By a wonderful act of organisation, we are transported to some of the country’s most outstanding gardens – of many different diverse sizes, styles and fame. And we get to be pampered in some very beautiful hotels, too!