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On May 13th 2025, Susie of Windowsill Plants, Market Harborough gave a very informal presentation without audio or visual equipment, using ‘only’ her plants and infectious enthusiasm to give a very entertaining and amusing talk. The evening was full of useful hints and tips on how to care for houseplants and to ensure they flourish.…
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Dr Andrew Ward talked to the Garden Club on 8th April 2025. Norwell Nurseries are the National Collection Holders of Astrantias and Hardy Chrysanthemums. They have featured in several magazines and have been voted the Best Perenial Gardens in the UK by the Hardy Plant Society. Dr Andrew Ward runs the nursery along with his…
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Andrew Mikolajski, a writer, speaker, and RHS judge, gave an interesting and often amusing talk for Ticknall Garden Club on March 11th, 2025, on the importance of roots for vigorous plant growth. The first part of his talk focused on how plants evolved from the sea bed to surviving on land when sea levels fell,…
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Tom Nicholls visited Ticknall Gardening Club on 11th February 2025. Until recently he was the senior gardener at York Gate Garden in Adel, near York and was instrumental in the development of the sand garden there. At York Gate the sand garden is made up of about 3 ft of sand and the plants were…
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We were blessed to have Nick Martin for our talk on Tuesday, 14 January, 2025. On his own admission, Nick was born a naturalist. As a child, he was fascinated with wildlife and after initially working for the RSPB he is now warden at the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust. A month spent photographing wildlife in gardens…
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Don Whitton is a national collection holder of hardy euphorbia and is a member of the Hardy Planters Society. His love of gardening and plants was evident throughout the evening. His talk on 12th November 2024 was full of handy strategies for keen gardeners to survive the dark winter months (November through to February) and…
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Toby Buckland, English gardener, TV presenter and author, gave an enjoyable and entertaining talk on 8th October 2024. It was full of gentle anecdotes and practical gardening tips. The core of Toby’s talk was colour in the garden focusing on ‘everyday’ more common varieties of plants. He encouraged us to think about texture and leaves,…
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Camilla Anderson, a garden historian, gave an insightful talk on the Arts and Crafts and Edwardian garden movement and in particular the gardens of Harold Peto on 9th September 2024. At the heart of the Arts and Crafts movement – as promoted by Morris & Co – was a reaction to the industrialisation and mass…
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On 9th July 2024, returning favourite to the club Doug Stewart gave an interesting and incredibly humorous talk on the history of RHS Bridgewater (designed by Tom Stuart Smith) and the development of the gardens as they are today. RHS Bridgewater in the grounds of Worsley New Hall has a fascinating history. The Halland terraced…
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A large and enthusiastic crowd turned out on June 11th 2024 to listen to Maria Heywood from The Flower Patch in Measham. She had always been a keen gardener and in 2014 she set up her floristry business using homegrown flowers. She became a member of Flowers from the Farm, an association of well over…
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The talk on 14 May 2024 was given by Paul Green of Greensleaves Nursery. Paul gave an enjoyable talk on his love for growing and propagating interesting and unusual plants. Remarkably his talk was undertaken without slides; instead, Paul took a very ‘hands-on’ approach using his plants as props throughout the evening! As a propagator…
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Professional beekeeper “The Bee Farmer” David McDowell gave a fascinating talk to Ticknall Garden Club on beekeeping and the life cycle of bees on 9 April, 2024. In the UK there are 4 main types of bees – honey bees, bumble bees, solitary bees and wasps. Sadly the number of DEFRA-registered hives in the UK…
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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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On 13 February 2024, Steve Lovell gave us an interesting talk on his approach to garden design after spending many years as a garden designer based in Lincolnshire. He encouraged us to think beyond flowers and look at ‘plants’ from the perspective of their foliage, structure, colourful stems, berries, seedheads and bark when choosing trees,…
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Geoff Hodge is a knowledgeable horticulturist. He is a freelance writer, author, radio broadcaster and gives talks on many gardening subjects. At his presentation to the Ticknall Gardening Club on 14 November 2023, Geoff started by telling us about Global warming/climate change. He described how we would all have to change the way we garden.…
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Does anyone remember a film called ‘A Man for all Seasons’? If not, the title describes Adam Frost. It Is hard to believe that Adam is dyslexic, ran away from home at 16 and came second in an interview to work for Geoff Hamilton. When Adams talk for Ticknall Garden Club began, I found I was utterly…
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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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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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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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Steffie Shields MBE is a lecturer, photographer, historic/landscape/ conservationist consultant and a writer for consumer magazines. She is very passionate about her subject. So much so she has written a book about Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown called Moving Heaven and Earth. I thought I knew a lot about Mr Brown but after Steffie’s presentation to Ticknall Garden Club…
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Darren Rudge is not only a Horticulturist but also a horticulture lecturer, writer andbroadcaster. So, as they say, ‘he knows his subject’. Darren has an easy going and refreshing style. At the March meeting of the Ticknall Garden Club he was able to convey a subject that can be complex so easily to an audience.…
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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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The origins and history of Catton are rich with stories of valour, intrigue, conquest, love and loss, much of it evoked by the many paintings in the Catton Collection. The Horton family and their descendants have been at Catton since 1405 when it was purchased from the descendants of the Norman Nigel D’Albini. He had…
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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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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 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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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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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”…
Review
Reviews here of mostly past events, presentations and visits.
