By Victoria Plum
A dynamic AGM for the Reepham & District Gardening Club marked a real sense of return to the world we knew PC (pre-Covid).
The popular annual plant sale is planned for 14 May, a Saturday as always, but if you have plants for sale (I have some, just extra bits of plants that I don’t have room for or have too many of) please take them to the Bircham Centre, suitably labelled for sale, on the evening of Friday 13 May from 6–7 pm.
Already a gardening club trip is planned to Burghley House near Lincoln for Thursday 16 June (mark your diary now).
Joe Whitehead, who used to be head gardener at Salle and who now holds the same position at Burghley House, will give a guided tour in the afternoon.
I’m looking forward to this as it’s always fascinating to have a plant expert tell you the secrets of a place, revealing so much more than you gain from just being a casual observer.
The enthusiastic and vivacious Ellen Mary gave us a stimulating talk on “Plants and Nature for Well-being” at this month’s gardening club meeting.
She acknowledged that, since we were all gardeners, we probably understood this already, but she gave facts to back up the benefits she explained.
Some of the members were convinced by her enthusiasm for dandelions; some were not. You have to admire the tenacity of weeds, she said.
She extolled the virtues of gardening with no gloves, contact with the soil and its many organisms being regenerative for our well-being, as is going barefoot in the garden. Oh, yes, and it is OK to hug trees.
The next gardening club meeting is at 7.45 pm on Tuesday 17 May in Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham, when Gabriel Read will talk about the organic flowers she grows for floristry in “A Year in the Cut Flower Garden”.
I look forward to this event, too, since obviously I like flowers in my garden, but always count them a bonus.
I can never quite manage that effect of colours planted together for special effect or gorgeous colour harmonies or an attractive succession through the seasons to ensure colour in the garden or colour in the house. If it happens for me, it is usually through sheer chance.
What made me understand that it really didn’t matter and was nothing to worry about was something the late Beth Chatto said.
She was keen on foliage because the foliage leaf patterns and colours are there for a long period of the year while flowers are fleeting.
Therefore I tend to concentrate on interesting and varied leaves in my garden and variations in texture.
This nameless shrub, a gift, has been gorgeous for weeks as its leaves unfurled. Photo: Tina Sutton
This ornamental rhubarb shows colour for months as it grows through the season. Photo: Tina Sutton
Variegated honesty shows very pretty leaves, almost from the moment it emerges, and takes on a ghostly look in the evenings as the summer progresses because of the luminosity of the foliage. Photo: Tina Sutton