Author: Pamela Adams

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 suburbs often get a bad press being neither as vibrant as a city or as attractive as the country. Perhaps an in-between place; boring and sterile. Yet some of our most lovely gardens are to be found on the outskirts of a town with attractive and well-kept front gardens and lovingly tended areas at the back of the house. However the suburban garden under scrutiny at the June meeting of Ticknall Garden Club was hard to beat and certainly not a typical one.

John Stirland has been giving gardening advice on Radio Nottingham for 45 years so he knows a thing or two about gardening. When he came to talk to Ticknall Garden Club in March, he was a man on a mission. That was to convince his audience that Winter is a fantastic season of the year in the garden.

Bleddyn and Sue Wynn-Jones travelled from Crug Farm Plants in North Wales to talk to Ticknall Garden Club at their January meeting. They diversified from farming in 1991 to the cultivation and sale of garden plants. Along with Kew Gardens they are the only people in England with a licence to bring back seeds and live plants into this country.

This year Ticknall Garden Club’s Christmas Social followed a most entertaining presentation from David Tideswell on caring for the birds in your garden in Winter. He has studied birds for many years and broadcasts on Radio Stoke and Derby.

At the June meeting of Ticknall Garden Club Philip Aubury gave an interesting talk on what he called “an oasis of delight”. This was in fact the Botanical Gardens at Edgbaston in Birmingham. Being a past director he knew a lot about its history. A Horticultural Society was founded in Birmingham as far back as 1829. This was at a time when plant hunting in foreign lands was bringing in many new discoveries to supplement the limited range of native species.

Little did Ann Bird think that buying half a dozen rose bushes from Tesco for her new garden when she married many years ago would lead to a lifetime passion and important role in the rose world. Her fascinating talk to Ticknall Garden Club at their May meeting told the amazing story of how she became interested in growing roses and began to exhibit them with great success and eventually was appointed to judge them at shows.

Brian Ellis suffers from a malady common to many gardeners. He sees a plant he likes and can’t help getting more in the same family and before you know it he has got himself a collection.