By Victoria Plum 
By Victoria Plum
A full house of Reepham & District Gardening Club members enjoyed a “performance” by Bryan Thurlow, acting out the life of “The Perennial Mr Potter”, at the June meeting.
This is the fictional story of a Suffolk lad, born in 1900, who starts life as an ordinary village boy in search of work and who ends up looking after a garden for appreciative employers. The tale was amusing, informative and evocative of a rosy and bucolic idyll.
Plants were for sale and we tea-ladies found ourselves in the Market Place afterwards (after doing the washing up with a little help from our friends), clasping Salvia turkestanica, a gorgeous, really red geranium and an Abutilon, to plug any gaps in our already overfull gardens.
The big gardening club trip on 21 June, organised by Celia Else, was to The Place for Plants garden and arboretum in East Bergholt, Suffolk.
This featured impressive plants for sale, lovely peaceful walks through the well- managed, and well-labelled (we gardeners do like labels), arboretum. (The Victoria sponge was nice and moist.)
We then went on to Green Island Gardens in Ardleigh, Essex (pictured), where we again strolled through lovely woodland and viewed yet more plants for sale (and yes, we just happened to test the Victoria sponge, which was just as good as the first venue).
The water gardens here were seething with iridescent and dazzling damselflies, and dragonflies; we even saw a grass snake in the water.
The current dearth of insect life everywhere is something that constantly grieves and concerns me, so I was interested that I only saw two insects – a shield bug and a hoverfly – plus three butterflies at the East Bergholt arboretum, but many bumblebees, honey bees and a wide variety of insects at Green Island.
Perhaps it was due to timing as our first visit was between 11 am 1 pm, and our second between 2 and 4 pm. Are insects late risers?
Next month we learn about dry gardens on Tuesday 17 July at 7.45 pm in Reepham Town Hall, Church Street, Reepham.
Photo: Tina Sutton
Geoff Fisher