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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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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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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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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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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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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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After a couple of extremely well-attended outdoor meetings in September, when we visited the historic gardens of Melbourne Hall and November, when we were at the unique and very special Staunton Harold Church, we had our first indoor meeting since the start of the pandemic. Our first meeting was at Ticknall Village Hall and the […]
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Ticknall Preservation and Historical Society is “UP AND RUNNING AGAIN”. Our first meeting was on Wednesday, 22 September 2021 when we visited the historic Melbourne Hall Gardens. It was a beautiful late Summer day and 29 members joined in the visit. Historian – and Melbourne Hall archivist – Philip Heath guided members on a tour […]
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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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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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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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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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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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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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We met for coffee at the Bull’s Head, where, with the aid of a map, Janet gave us a brief history of Repton from Anglo Saxons, Vikings and their eventual settlement in 874, the changing course of the river, its mills, ferries and fords and the development of the village. This was followed by a […]
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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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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 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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Ticknall has been a base for chef Ig Oliver since the late ’70s, from his earliest days working at local establishments such as the Crewe and Harpur, Hardinge Arms, The Fallen Knight at Ashby-de-la-Zouch and others, but his career as a chef has from time to time taken him to many far-flung places. In the […]
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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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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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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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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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Winifred Harpur Crewe, always known as Winnie, was born into a privileged life in 1879. The second daughter of Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe, Bart., she spent much of her childhood happily at Calke Abbey with her parents and siblings, one brother and three sisters. Winnie’s life followed the usual and expected pattern of the “gentry” […]
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Where did those ten years go? It seems like only yesterday that a share of the Scarecrow Trail proceeds helped us to launch our rather grand sounding Ticknall Luncheon Club. But here we were, ten years after that first lunch on 16 September 2008, celebrating the tenth anniversary of Lunch Club. We decided at the […]
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Avoncroft Museum is home to over 30 different buildings and structures which have been rescued and re-built in rural Worcestershire. The Museum is spread over 19 acres of beautiful Worcestershire countryside and includes a wildflower meadow, period gardens, a traditional cider and perry orchard, as well as the collection of historic buildings. We had a […]
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It’s always a great pleasure to be invited to join friends for lunch, especially if it’s at somewhere unusual where you have never had lunch before. Then, when you look around and see lots of your old friends are also there and there’s the chance to catch up on what’s happening – that’s especially heartwarming. […]
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On the 5th August 2017, a group of TARG members was given a guided tour of Sinai House by the owner Kate Newton. The house, located at Shobnall on the outskirts of Burton, is a Grade II* listed building. It has a long and interesting history, but was derelict when the current owners acquired it […]
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In July 2017 Ticknall Archaeological Research Group had a very interesting and informative day school, led by Janet Spavold and Sue Brown, on reading the history of vernacular houses. In the first session of the morning Janet gave us a whistle-stop tour of how the style of houses changed from the Medieval period to the […]
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This year was our 9th Christmas Tree Festival. It all began by chance when I visited Newton Solney’s church Christmas Tree Festival. The church looked lovely and I suggested that we do the same. Over the years we have developed the event; we now offer homemade soup as well as cakes and drinks but the […]
Review
Reviews here of mostly past events, presentations and visits.
