The Garden Club meets at 7.30 pm every fourth Thursday of the month. In normal times meetings are held in the Memorial Centre, unless otherwise stated, but during the current COVID-19 lockdown they are held via Zoom. Club member benefits: all talks/presentations with free refreshments; garden visits; social events; a free annual visit to Wisley (normal price £15); and discounted seed/bulb orders.

The Club welcomes new members at amy time, membership is renewed in January at &15 for the year. Visitors are very welcome to all meetings: £3, to include refreshments.

During 2020, despite the pandemic, we continued with an amended programme with presentations & talks delivered via Zoom, an evening visit to a local garden & some daytime visits to members’ gardens. Our first three talks in 2021 are planned to be via Zoom, but we plan to also use the Memorial Centre if able to.

Listed below is the Garden Club's programme for 2021, with the usual selection of talks on some interesting subjects, together with three good visits. In June we have a plant stall at the Whiteparish Fete and shall be very grateful for any plants you can spare on the day for sale to replenish Club funds.

For photos of some of our recent activities in the website's Galleries section, click here.

Saturday 17 August saw the Memorial Centre full of beautiful veg, fruit, flowers, floral decorations, preserves and cookery. Along with some wonderful handicrafts and artwork with amazing photography, a tribute to the talents of Whiteparish!

With 59 exhibitors (a 50% increase on last year) and with 336 entries (an increase of almost 30%), this was a very successful show. The cookery and preserves were well supported—particularly the men-only class with nine lemon drizzle cakes on display! A big thank you to all the men who joined in the spirit of the show "to have a go", and well done to Andrew Lax who saw off the stiff competition! It was great to see the handicraft table full. The Garden club had designed this section to attract more entries Despite the heavy rain, all day on the Friday, before the show, the horticultural sections still looked good.

With help from our show sponsors, who made it possible to continue with this unique and special village event and some very hard working committee members, the 2019 Whiteparish Garden and Hobbies Show was a great success.

Here are the winners of some of the major prizes in the show

Members have been busy recently—the annual plant sale in May was well attended, and the stall at the fete saw lots of customers buying the great quality plants. Proceeds from both sales contribute to the successful running of the club.

The joint meeting with Alderbury club was held in Alderbury village this year and was well attended. Some members took advantage of the one free entry per year to RHS Wisley at the beginning of June.

The outdoor supper was held in the Cowesfield room instead because of inclement weather. Sarah Skeates claimed the quiz winner’s title.

There will be an evening visit to a garden in Burley at the end of June, and the annual coach trip this year is in July, to Woolbeding gardens in West Sussex. Plans for the village garden and hobbies show are well in hand and details will be found in separate publicity.

Members were welcomed by Karon and reminded of two local events in May. On 6 May there will be a Plant Fare at Longstock and on 26 May, gardens open at West Dean. She reported that sales of tickets for the coach trip to Woolbeding on 25 July were going well. This trip is open to non club members and a deposit of £10 will secure a seat.

Stephen Oakes from the RSPB was the speaker for the evening. He used fantastic photographs from the RSPB website to illustrate his talk about fish-eating birds. Some birds exclusively eat fish, others just use them to supplement their diet. It was encouraging to hear how well bird numbers are doing for the most part in our country. And it was interesting to see from the photographs how great a difference there is between summer and winter plumage.

The annual plant sale will be on 11 May between 9.30 and 12 - please come along and support the club at the Memorial centre.

Karon welcomed everyone to the meeting and gave details of the proposed coach trip in July. This year, the outing is to Woolbeding near Midhurst. £10 deposit will secure your place on the coach. Members were introduced to the speaker Katherine Crouch. Katherine was a former winner of the title BBC Gardener of the Decade. Her title for our talk was "New tricks for old gardeners".

Katherine recognises that as we gardeners "mature", we need to find ways to minimise the work and in doing so prolong our enjoyment. She suggested that if we embrace the ideas from the "new perennials" movement, we won’t have hedges to trim. Strimming the borders in the spring season means we can leave the results in the borders to act as mulch. She suggests we look closely at our gardens and perhaps think of different designs to minimise outdoor housework. Wisteria for example could be grown on a fence which is less work than growing it on the house. Her advice is not to grow anything that takes longer to prune than it is in flower. She also suggests enlisting the (paid) help of teenagers—preferably someone else’s!

Katherine is in favour of the no dig gardening technique—but you do need to mulch prolifically. We were then shown a variety of useful garden tools—with the suggestion we choose those that don’t rust—one less job to worry about. We all went home with much food for thought.

The next meeting will be at 7.30pm on April 25th in the Memorial Centre and is entitled "Fish for Tea"—all about Fish-eating birds. New members and visitors always welcome at £15 for the year or £3 per meeting.

Our February talk was given by Alan Edmondson MSc: a lively talk about "Beetles in the garden—Friend or Foe?" Worldwide there are approximately 9,000 species of birds, 10,000 species of mammals and 400,000 species of beetles of which the UK has about 4,000. They are a very important part of the food chain and you will be very glad to know the majority are 'good' beetles eating slugs, caterpillars, woodlice, aphids, black-fly and feeding on dead wood. So please think very carefully before trying to eradicate them in your garden! However some beetles and their larvae are a major pest feeding on roots, attacking seedlings and causing damage to trees and leaves.

The largest beetle in the U.K. is the Stag Beetle, which loves rotting wood. The Scarlet Malachite Beetle is one of Britains rarest beetles and is found in thatched roofs in Hampshire. Who knew beetles could be so interesting? It certainly kept us spellbound for an hour or so!

Our next meeting will be at 7:30pm on March 28th in the Memorial Centre and is entitled "Fish for Tea"—all about Fish-eating birds. New members and visitors always welcome at £15 for the year or £3 per meeting.

The Chair, Karon welcomed a very good crowd to the first meeting of 2019. Members paid their annual subscriptions and in return received the new programme card – with interesting speakers and outings to look forward to.

We welcomed back Rosemary Le Grand to the club. She is a very interesting speaker and this time told us all about her trip to North Island New Zealand, with the aid of some stunning photographs.

We all had a whistle stop tour of places she had visited – Auckland being the busiest town although Wellington is the capital. As you would expect, the Botanical gardens in Auckland (over 100 acres!) display lots of native plants complete with Maori names as well as the Latin ones.

January, when Rosemary travelled, is high summer and the best time to see the flowers and trees. Their climate means that you can recognise all the things we grow here, but in addition there are citrus fruits too. There is a eucalyptus tree with scarlet flowers that would be too tender to survive our climate; perhaps with the exception of the Isles of Scilly.

Wild flowers are planted by the roadsides as a calming measure, hoping the speeding drivers will slow down to appreciate them ! Lupins are not native to New Zealand, but mostly yellow ones thrive in these areas.

Interestingly, there are not many butterflies in the country and moths, of which there are great numbers, do most of the pollinating.

By the time Rosemary had told us about the famous trees and the flax and their uses, we all agreed we felt we had been on the journey with her. Beautiful coloured slides to brighten a chilly winter’s evening!

At the October club meeting the Chair, Karon (lovely to see her back!), gave some "business" news:

• Dobies seed catalogues were available – club members get a generous 50% discount
• A further 5000 crocus bulbs have been purchased to "turn Whiteparish purple" again next spring. The purchase of these raises funds for a Polio charity. Volunteers are needed to plant these around the village.
• New committee members are needed to replace officers whose terms have come to an end. The club is thriving but does need management.

Stella gave news of next year’s summer coach outing. The date for diaries is 25 July. The trip will be to Woolbeding House in Sussex—more details at a later date. And Sarah asked for donations to make luxury hampers for the Winter Ball which makes funds for the Memorial centre.

Karon then introduced the speaker, reminding us there were only 61 days to Christmas! We had all noticed the tabletops covered with items for Sally Burr’s demonstration of "Christmas decorations using natural materials". Sally is a volunteer gardener at The Vyne—a National Trust property. She had a variety of greenery which we must assume didn’t come from there!

She proceeded to show us how to make two items: a traditional wreath, which could be laid flat or hung, and a topiary tree in a pot. Sally explained that not only does she use natural vegetation but she recycles items from her house or shed. The only things you need to purchase at the beginning are various sizes of florist’s wire and some polyfilla if you don’t have any leftovers from a DIY job. The end results were very pleasing and no one should be surprised if natural wreaths feature on Whteparish doors this year or topiary trees are on sale at bazaars!

This made a good finale to our speakers this year as our next meeting (22nd November) will be our AGM and social evening.

Our first meeting of the new season took place on 27th September 2018 when Mary Holiday-Bishop spoke on “The Plant Hunters: Sir Joseph Banks and Captain James Cook”. A good number of members came, along with several visitors. The scene was set on 2 large tables, with portraits of the collectors, a diagram showing the route of the sea voyage, examples of the exotic plants discovered etc.

The speaker reminded us of what a debt we owe these plant collectors. Britain had a very limited flora thousands of years ago and it is to these men and others we owe the very rich and varied range of plants now available to us. Mrs Holiday-Bishop gave a short biography of Sir Joseph Banks and then gave details of the voyage he made with Captain Cook on HMS Endeavour from 1768 to 1771 when they visited Brazil, Tahiti and Australia and New Zealand. Hundreds of new plants and animals were discovered and recorded.

On return home Sir Joseph Banks became famous. He was elected president of the Royal Society, a post he held for 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. We thanked Mrs Holiday-Bishop very much for her charming presentation. The next meetings of the Garden Club will be (1) a talk by Sally Burr on "Christmas Decorations using Natural Materials" on the 25th September, and (2) the AGM on 22nd November, when members are asked to bring a plate of food to share at the social time afterwards.

Congratulations to all winners but especially to Malvin Ward who really stole the show this year; and to Alexander White who beat Hollie Smith by one point to win the Children's Cup. For some nice photos that Keith Hobbs took at the event, click here.

It's that time of year again to start thinking about the village show which is being held on Saturday August 11th. The full schedule of classes will appear in the July and August editions of Steeple and Street, however we like to give you extra time to prepare for the following classes. We hope you will be inspired to enter, and we look forward to a greater number of people entering the show this year.

HANDICRAFT
Class 71. A hand-knitted or crocheted item
Class 72. A hand-made toy (any material)
Class 73. A piece of patchwork and/or quilting
Class 74. Paper crafts (e.g cards, flowers, origami, jewellery)
Class 75. A piece of Tapestry, Needlepoint, Cross-Stitch or Embroidery
Class 76. Handicraft – any medium
Class 77. Handmade jewellery (not paper)

ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Class 81. Painting – Urban Landscape – any medium
Class 82. Drawing – Black and White in Pen and Ink or Charcoal
Class 84. Photograph – Wildflower meadow / meadow scene
Class 85. Photograph – Your favourite photo taken locally

CHILDREN
Under 8
Class 93. A picture of flowers in a garden (max A4 size)
Class 96. A collage of an insect (max A4 size)

Ages 8–13
Class 101. An item made from recycled pieces
Class 102. A photograph of a holiday scene
Class 103. A piece of art – any medium (max A4 size)

NOTE RE THE SHOW SCHEDULE
If by any chance you don't have a copy of Steeple and Street, the schedule is also available as pdf files for downloading from this website. Click here for the top sheet, and here for the main schedule.

On 17th May, 28 members and friends took a coach to Loseley Park near Guildford. The weather was lovely but there was a chill wind in the morning so the coffee and cake on arrival were very welcome. Loseley House is still the More-Molyneux family home but some of us had booked for a tour of part of the Tudor house, built in 1562. It is a "fine example of Elizabethan architecture" and our guide had a host of interesting items to point out. A very pleasant lunch had been reserved by some of our party and then a garden tour took place. The garden of 2-1/2 acres was divided into four: a rose garden of over 1000 roses (not yet in flower of course), a herb garden (culinary, medicinal, decorative and household); a white flower garden and a vegetable garden. Lots to see and enjoy. Definitely worth a visit so thanks to Tony Leader and Stella Gardener who arranged it all. (For a nice set of photos that Keith Hobbs took on the day, click here.)

PLANT SALE – The plant sale on 19th May at the Memorial Hall raised £270, thank you to all those who donated plants for sale and also to all the villagers that came and purchased plants. The Garden Club will also have a stall at the village fete in June – so there will be more plant bargains there.

Members of the club were very pleased to welcome back Steve Austin as their speaker in April. We also welcomed members of Alderbury club to what has happily become an annual visit.

This year Steve’s talk and photos described in detail his second visit to Australia which he says is a "Plantsman’s paradise".

His visit took place in Autumn – therefore Spring in Australia. His biggest thrill always on his travels is to see plants in their natural landscapes. This time he had visited Perth; the Blue Mountains near Sydney and all the National Parks. He commented that although Australia is a huge continent, the inhabitants of the country love their flora and fauna and give very good information as to where to locate everything.

He told us there is a reason for Australians wearing the cork trimmed hats and that is the flies. Although they don’t bite, they cover you in their thousands – which we could see from his photos.

Steve thinks that climate change is allowing us to gradually grow the plants they do, and conversely they will in future likely grow ours.

I am sure we will invite Steve again at a future date. The difficulty is tracking him down as he travels so extensively! For a relatively young man, he has an extensive C.V. already. He has worked at the Sir Harold Hillier and Beth Chatto gardens; travelled the world while studying for his Master’s degree; has worked at Chelsea with the legendary Andy McIndoe and now works at New Forest Plants. This establishment grows and sells 1.2 million perennials each year and Steve is still travelling to source new possibilities.

In case anyone is adventurous and wants to source and try growing some of the plants Steve showed us, here are a few of the ones he saw:
Boronia, Banksia, Caladenia, Swainsonia, and Anigozanthus.

Members were reminded about the evening visit on 28th June and the BBQ on 26th July.

The March meeting was held on the 22nd. Stella Gardener took the meeting as Chairman Karon Dyson was still undergoing treatment. Stella announced that manure had been offered to members and was sending round details. She asked for volunteers to do teas and also thank the speakers. There were still a few places left on the outing on 17th May to Loseley Park: departure time is now 9am, return 6pm.

The speaker was Charlotte Fyfe who spoke on “Foraging for Wild Food”. She showed us slides of many well-known plants, some of which raised groans from the audience as weeds! Celandine is quoted in Shakespeare and its roots can be used to treat haemorrhoids; dandelions can be used in uric acid treatment; coltsfoot is so-called as its leaves resemble a hoof print and it can be used in wine and also as a cough medicine; nettles are very nutritious and can be used in soup; yarrow can be used to staunch wounds. Fat hen/Good King Henry is rich in vitamin B1, iron and calcium!

Other plants are well-known for their fruits which can be used in jellies and jams: crab-apple, blackberries, damsons, bullaces. Many sorts of mushrooms were mentioned. A combination of all these free foods throughout the year can supply a very varied diet.

Charlotte writes under the name of Popescu and brought a selection of her books for sale, some about chickens which she keeps. She also had some fresh eggs for sale!

PLANT SALE – Don’t forget our plant sale on 19th May at the Memorial Hall 10am to 12 noon. Bring plants for sale at 9.30 am.

PURPLE 4 POLIO – We hope you will have noticed the splashes of purple around the village this Spring! This is part of a mass crocus planting programme arranged by Rotary clubs to raise money to eradicate polio from the world. Your garden club bought 1000 crocus bulbs to help fund this project and members and others have been busy planting them. There is no known cure for polio so it is vital to immunise children to prevent the spread of polio. We hope to contribute to this project again soon.

The February meeting was held on the 22nd. Again, there was a very good turnout. Our treasurer welcomed everyone and explained that Karon Dyson could not come as she was at home recovering from a recent operation. She is doing well and we all sent our best wishes.

Stella then introduced the speaker Bryan Madders whose topic was “Dahlias for pleasure”. Bryan is a judge for the National Dahlia Society. He explained that the Spanish had discovered that the Aztecs used them to make water conduits and took the flowers back to Spain. They got their name from the Swedish botanist Dahl.

Dahlias are half hardy perennials. There is controversy as to whether to dig up the tubers and store them over winter or leave them in the ground. 90% of gardeners leave them in the ground; to protect from occasional frosts, a dry mulch can be applied. The advantage of digging them up is that they can start to grow earlier in the year when replanted. Stored tubers must be kept dry and cool with air circulating beneath to prevent rot. They can be wrapped in newspaper and stored in the garage.

Bryan explained how to propagate dahlias: cuttings can be taken and caused to root or the tubers can be started to grow early Spring, and then split so that each part has a shoot.

Then followed a slide show of some of the many many types and colours of dahlias. A wonderful variety.

The April meeting on the 26th is a joint meeting with Alderbury Garden Club on Australia – do come! There will be a raffle.

PLANT SALE – Don’t forget our plant sale on 19th May at the Memorial Hall 10am to 12 noon. Bring plants for sale at 9.30 am.

The January meeting was held on the 25th. There was a very good turnout. Our chairman welcomed everyone and reminded us that renewals of subscriptions were due, still remaining excellent value at £10. Some new members joined.

Tony, the programme secretary, gave some more details of the planned outing to Loseley Park (3 m south-west of Guildford) on 17th May. A small coach for 35 has been booked: cost £14 pp. There are various options, both for the visit and for catering arrangements. Members will have received further details by e-mail and are asked to book at the next meeting + cheque. Further details from:
  Tony Leader Anthony.leader01@btinternet.com or
  Stella Gardener Stella@hillcrestcampsite.co.uk

The chairman then introduced the speaker, Rosina Brandham, whose topic was Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth. She spoke with great ease (without notes)for nearly an hour about Joseph Paxton from his humble early beginnings as the 8th and last child born in 1803 to an agricultural labourer in Bedfordshire to becoming head gardener at Chatsworth and friend of the estate owner, the Duke of Devonshire. He entered produce from the garden in shows in London over 200 miles away using the canals to transport the fruit and flowers safely and quickly. He won many prizes.

It was an age when horticulture was becoming fashionable and Joseph Paxton played a great part in spreading knowledge; he started a magazine, the Horticultural Register, which was edited by Charles Dickens at one period. There were no slides to illustrate the talk but gradually some strange shapes behind the speaker were unveiled to show portraits of the Duke of Devonshire and Joseph Paxton and also a painting of Chatsworth House. We were all spellbound; it was such a vivid re-creation of those times. There were little stories to create amazement and we were sorry when it ended! (Apparently the story continues in another talk!)

The March meeting is “Foraging for Wild Food” by Charlotte Fyfe and we hope to see you all there, hopefully when the weather is improving!

The October meeting was held on the 26th. Our chairman welcomed the speaker, Rosemary Legrand, who enthused about idyllic Italian gardens. She is president of the international society of the Rhododendron, Camellia and Magnolia Group of the Royal Horticultural Society, and was keen to point out many wonderful examples of these groups of plants in her slide show.

She conjured up Spring in Italy with visits to various villas and a tour of their gardens. They were mostly in northern Italy around Lakes Maggiore and Como where there is an excellent climate. The elegant town of Pallanza looks out over Lake Maggiore and from there you can see the Alps. We saw cherry blossom against a blue sky. Villa Taranto in Palanza is known worldwide for its botanical gardens. We saw a giant dawn redwood, tree ferns, tulips planted in a sinuous design, camellias, rhododendrons, an orangery with pool etc.

We then visited several other villas with beautiful gardens in the area. All very beautiful and some used for wedding receptions etc. We thanked Rosemary for her tour of Italy, many of us planning to visit the area!

As usual, there is no meeting in December. Our January meeting will be a talk on Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth.

Our chairman welcomed the speaker, John Notman, who is vice-president of the Salisbury and District Natural History Society. His topic was an exploration of some of the stunning flora and fauna which can be found within a 25-mile radius of Salisbury.

He grouped the animals and plants under five different habitats. The ‘jewel’ in Salisbury’s crown is the chalk downland – made up of acid lowland heath. Prime examples are Martin Down and Pepperbox Hill. His wonderful slides showed and named orchids, butterflies, spiders, brown hares among many, many others.

Hedges and roadsides, heathland (New Forest), wetlands and woodlands were the remaining habitats and here again followed an astonishing show of birds, wild flowers, fungi, animals, snakes and dragonflies. The quality and range of the slides was amazing and we all truly appreciated the work and dedication that must have gone into the slide show.

Earlier in the month some members took advantage of a one-day free entry to RHS Wisley garden which is a benefit of Whiteparish Garden Club’s membership of the Royal Horticultural Society. It was a wet day but possible to dodge the showers and was enhanced by their annual flower show. Those who made the effort to go, despite the weather, were very glad they did and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

The November meeting is on the 23rd and will be the Annual General Meeting followed by our usual get together. No meeting in December.

We awoke to sunshine on August 29th and that is how the day continued for our annual Flower and Hobbies Show. Once again it was well supported with familiar faces and some new competitors. The usual hurly burly took place with entrants dashing around to get their exhibits ready for judging. The red and cream display tables were duly transformed into an array of colour and texture.

When the doors reopened at 2:30pm anxious exhibitors returned to see how they had fared. There were looks of great delight and, of course, some of disappointment, but the good thing is it is simply a fun day. Nick Gilbert (of dahlia fame) kindly presented the cups to our prize winners and also generously donated a shield to be awarded for the most points gained in the dahlia section.

Listed below are the successful winners, so congratulations to you all. We would like to thank all those people who took part, especially the judges who gave their time so willingly to make our show the success it was. A special thank you also to the donators of raffle prizes, their generosity is much appreciated.

Our annual Flower and Hobbies Show will soon be upon us. On Saturday August 29th we look forward to welcoming lots of exhibitors with their produce, flowers and crafts. Class cards will once again be available on Friday evening in the Village Hall between 6:00pm and 7:00pm. Below is a reminder of some of the categories that require preparation before the show, so do get busy!