We attempted something a bit different at this meeting! Our Chair Stella introduced the evening by asking the audience to imagine we were all sitting relaxing in the CABAHS garden shed surrounded by our gardening friends. She then introduced the “panel” and to start the conversation rolling, asked how they first became interested in gardening.
The four panellists, Ruth, Kathy, Lynda & Pat each had different but similar personal stories, and it was usually a parent or grandparent who first sparked their interest.
The next question was about the tastiest vegetable or fruit we had ever grown.
For Pat this was Sungold tomatoes. Lynda is known among members for growing Goji berry but she chose sweetcorn as the tastiest ever. Ruth thought figs from her allotment were amazing, especially as she had inherited them from the previous holder. For Kathy it was “Mr Green’s” (the previous owner of her garden) summer raspberries, which have been in the same bed for over 35 years.
Now on to the best Show flowers (topical as we have the Spring Show coming up next month). Stella put in her vote for Penstemon ‘Garnet’, certainly a very good do-er in the Walled Gardens at Charlton House.
Kathy was definite about her St Patricks Day daffodils, and tried to fix the vote by showing everyone her vase from the Show Table.
Lynda said her vote was for Valerian, a bit surprising perhaps until she pointed out that they are an absolute favourite with moths, and she & Joe participate in the Garden Moth Scheme, a citizen science project.
Pat had trouble deciding, but Viv helped her agree that Camellias can’t be beaten at this time of year, especially variety ‘Donation’ which they both grow. Pat also suggested any Clematis as a winning flower.
But Ruth pipped everyone by coming up with Wisteria and this was the general Winner with the audience.
The next topic was about plants you HATE – as Stella says: is the world too full of Verbena?
Kathy explained why Gladioli were bottom of her list of garden plants, and got the biggest BOO from the audience (in a good way). Pat thought there was no place for Astilbes in any garden and Lynda chose Valerian as her hate plant as well as her love plant, as their habit of self-seeding everywhere severely tests her love of moths. Ruth came up with Roses, which caused a ripple of muttering in the audience! Anna said she always finds Lupins look out of place in English gardens and Fran gave a heartfelt Boo to Bindweed.
Stella asked everyone to present the garden implements that we had brought in. Kathy and Ali both showed their Hori Hori knives and demonstrated why they are so useful (in fact lethal). Ali also had an ingenious string dolly, with a razor inset in the top so you can cut the string. Lynda described her favoured garden accessories: wormeries and bokashi for composting, and the audience showed a lot of interest in this. Anastasia showed her daisy grubber, which she had “found” in her garden, left by a previous owner and now made excellent use of again. Finally Deborah displayed her razor hoe (from Burgon & Ball) and says it is excellent for weeding, hardly needing to move the soil (Jason would like that!); gently moving creeping plants such as ivy away from the wall; and slicing through the roots of weeds.
A short discussion about the peat-free question:
Pat says always add feed, and she also prefers adding grit rather than sand to the mix. Melcourt Sylvagrow was mentioned as a good one, and Anna thought Thompsons peat-free with added John Innes No 1 was reasonable too. Ruth has gardened peat-free for years and pointed out that peat was not available in the past and we can just learn to live without it.
Last chat in the CABAHS Shed was around who you would invite to visit your garden, living or dead. Kathy went for Joe Swift as she felt he would be kind and least judgemental about the state of her garden. Pat would like Beth Chatto or Carol Klein to visit. Lynda wanted to have a cuppa with Al, the Jesmond Community Orchard gardener who encouraged her to use grafting to push the boundaries of which fruit trees will grow in the North East. She described how they repaired two vandalised apple trees in Jesmond Dene park by grafting several varieties onto the stumps to make Family trees. Ruth picked her heroes as Geoff Hamilton or Christopher Lloyd. We asked the audience to vote and they chose Carol Klein and Geoff Hamilton.
We hope you enjoyed the unusual style of the evening, it’s back to our usual shows and talks for the rest of the year! We leave you with some of the wonderful Show Table pictures, including Anastasia’s winning tulips:
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 