Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

Coach trip to RHS Wisley

On Wednesday 11 May, a coachload of CABAHS members went on a much anticipated trip to RHS Wisley. This was my first experience of a CABAHS coach trip and it was brilliantly organised by Anna (thank you Anna!).

Just before the rain started… RHS Wisley May 2022

After experiencing dry weather for weeks, the forecast was for rain mid-afternoon, so it felt important to pack as much in as possible before the rain started. Several members had signed up for a tour with a Wisley volunteer, but as the tours started, so did the rain – several hours earlier than forecast! We were, however, undeterred.

Plant Sale and Community Day at Charlton House on Sunday May 22nd

Thank you to everyone who came to our Plant Sale and Community Day at Charlton House on Sunday May 22^nd, what a fabulous day, sunny and successful! Plants were either donated by members or grown on by the Volunteers in the Old Pond Garden. We were slightly staggered by how popular our plants were, and we had pretty well sold out by 1pm, which was amazing. Everyone was very generous, either buying plants or donating for our home made lavender bags, or the Discovery Trail.

Our Community event was shared with Charlton Community Garden, who ran the “Pot up a plant” stall, Blackheath Flower Arranging club, Friends of Greenwich Park, The Charlton Society, Montessori Moments, Greenwich Music School and the Charlton Toy Library. And of course the Greenwich & Blackheath WI cake stall.

We were very pleased to be part of the Trusts “Sustainability Sunday”, it was certainly lively and great to see so much going on. The Producers Market was on the Front Lawn, there were tours of the House, talks about Heritage and garden tours with our very own Head Gardener, Jason Sylvan. Frilly’s café was open and the Old Library had items from the Greenwich Archive on display as well as installations by local artists Fiona Veacock and CraftA, and other childrens activities.

Funds raised from plant sales will go to the Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice, our Speaker programme and the Walled Gardens revival. Thank you all!

Purchase from Plant Stall at Community Day May 2022

Discovery Trail clue at Community Day May 2022

Kathy

May 2022: Val Bourne on ‘Butterflies in Gardens’

CABAHS welcomed Val Bourne to speak at our May meeting, sharing her photographs, experience and knowledge of butterflies in the garden. She emphasised that she is not a butterfly expert (but she knows one!), she’s an organic gardener who has spent a lot of time observing butterflies, their habits and preferences – and, sadly, their decline in recent years.

Photograph of the FSC's Butterfly ID chart

As a starting point, Val recommended a book and a tool: ‘The Philips Guide to Butterflies’ and the Field Studies Council’s butterfly identification chart. Butterfly Conservation also provide a range of identification guides online. Photographs of a wide range of species – 24 different ones have been spotted in the Spring Cottage garden – showed us the beauty of even the smallest, brownest examples!

Val explained how useful even a small meadow area is for many species, how some species rely on quite a narrow range of plants for nectar, and how the timing of a butterfly lifecycle is intrinsically linked to the lifecycle of their food plants. She stated that climate change – causing plants to flower at different times – is demonstrably messing up this synchronisation, so as gardeners it’s important to grow a wide range of butterfly-friendly plants to try to mitigate that situation.

Some examples of butterfly-friendly plants, and the butterflies that particularly need or enjoy them:

Show Table May 2022

The Show table at our meeting on Monday 16th had a wide range of entries and looked wonderful. Points were awarded by our speaker for the evening, organic gardener and writer Val Bourne.

Harrogate Flower Show and Harlow Carr

Late April is a great time to remind yourself that spring happens outside of London, and I had the joy of meeting a group of friends in Yorkshire for the Harrogate Flower Show. This is quite a major show, running over 4 days, but it’s not run by the RHS and it has quite different emphases. It does, though, have lots of exhibitors and we enjoyed a full day there, in brilliant sunshine.

First off, we looked at the flower arranging, clearly a major component with several training colleges nearby. There were lots of competition categories, from big set pieces to carefully chosen themes. We admired long-horned cows fashioned from garlands of flowers, and saw a heavy emphasis on arum lilies, which featured on the Best In Show winner, for instance.

By contrast, the show gardens were a very minor element of the event. They were small, commercially-sponsored but not carefully themed, and quite underwhelming. And they had very few people looking at them.

The area for various Societies was dominated by the Daffodil Society Northern Group, where competitors were vying for prizes in nearly 100 categories. The variety of blooms was extraordinary, with a strong emphasis on precision and newly-developed cultivars. Among others, the Yorkshire Bonsai Society was also showing beautiful specimens, as were the National Auricula and Primula Society, the National Dahlia Society, and the West Yorkshire Hardy Plant Society, which won a Premier Gold award for its spectacular display.

Great Dixter – spring glory

We went to see the tulips, but found instead curated chaos, a glorious cacophony of spring planting.

Vija

Plant Sale and Community Day

We are very pleased to be running our Plant Sale and Community Day again, on Sunday May 22nd from 11 am. This year, we will be part of the Charlton House event Sustainability Sunday, so lots of other exciting things will be going on too. Put it in your diary now! More details to come, but as well as plants and cakes for sale there will be lots of children’s activities including our popular Discovery Trail around the grounds and crafts to make. As well as the Horticultural Society, you can find out what lots of other local groups are up to. Look forward to seeing you there!

Keukenhof

The gardens at Keukenhof in April are quite remarkable. Great rivers of tulips are everywhere. Small exhibitions in the Juliana house give background information to the history and also to the planting practices of this huge venture: 7 million tulips (and other flowering bulbs) are planted each year and each year, at the end of flowering, these are all taken up and crushed to be used as compost around the trees in the garden and made into pulp for the paper which covers the guides to the estate.

As a not-for-profit organisation, in addition to the garden architects, the gardens rely on an army of volunteers. From May onwards the gardens are closed to allow time for the essential work of taking up the tulips and replanting, until reopening for the spring display. The bulbs in each garden area are given to Keukenhof by growers in the Netherlands and the name of the company appears as signage on the beds. For those wishing to make a note of their favourites, tulips are also discretely labelled, although it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormous range on display!

Vija

Members Gardens April

We’re always pleased to receive reports from our members’ gardens, particularly when accompanied by photos. This month Annie H wanted us to share her delight with the Rose Cottage ‘Garden Party’ tulips in her front garden.

Rose Cottage 'Garden Party' tulips in Annie H's front garden

Nicolas shared this photo with us showing his Daphne bholua in February.

April blog Euphorbia 2

I know we have had posts on euphorbias already, but these plants are such a delight in the month of April that I am adding yet more. The little Euphorbia Chameleon, below, self -seeds happily, but in such a delicate and restrained way that it is welcome everywhere I find it. In addition to this, it politely dies back and allows summer flowering plants to take over.

The Euphorbia below (amygdaloides purpurea) is a stunning contrast with the lime green flower head and the stems which are an intense dark red. It has seeded itself in the gravel path and I’m not entirely sure where it comes from.

In Euphorbia, flowers occur in a head, called the cyathium. Each male or female flower in the cyathium head has only its essential sexual part, in males the stamen and in females the pistil. The flowers do not have sepals, petals or nectar to attract pollinators, although other nonflower parts of the plant have an appearance and nectar glands with similar roles. Euphorbias are the only plants known to have this kind of flower head. It should also be noted that, when the stems are cut, they exude a thick white substance which is extremely irritating to skin.

And, of course, there is the magnificent Euphorbia Mellifera (Honey Spurge) which rightfully deserves its common name and is a delight to be near at this time of year when the scent fills the air. Every garden should have one – it keeps its shape well or can be cut back. Mine originally came from the garden of Jillian Smith, CABAHS ex-Chair, who many remember fondly. Jillian, if you are reading this – thank you!

Vija