At our meeting on Monday 16 March we welcomed Lynne Moore of Moore and Moore Plants to talk to members about shade loving plants. A specialist in plants for shade for over 30 years, Lynne was clearly passionate about her subject and described herself as a ‘plantaholic’. She noted that from their very first time exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower show, one of the most common complaints she heard from visitors was that ‘nothing grows in the shade’ and this may be why our meeting attracted a large number of attendees. Lynne set out to prove that this is a very mistaken view…
Our first meeting of 2025 was very well attended. The speaker and the topic obviously attracted a good audience. The Show Table received a good selection of displays, with Jean’s a worthy winner of Best on the Table.
Our speaker, Fergus Garrett, the highly influential plantsman and horticulturalist, has been Head Gardener at the internationally acclaimed Great Dixter Garden in Northiam, East Sussex since 1993 and is the CEO of the Great Dixter Charitable Trust. He gave an excellent, wide-ranging talk on how to keep our gardens looking vibrant and spectacular all the year round. He explained how to plant for a long flowering season with plants co-existing in one place, but performing at different times. He used photographs of the spectacular gardens at Great Dixter to illustrate his points. He said Great Dixter had the advantage of scale and greenhouses but it is possible to scale down what they do at Great Dixter and use their scheme in our own gardens with minimal labour.
He particularly used the magnificent long border at Great Dixter as an example of how to plan a long flowering season. How to use structural under-planting, interlaying and interplanting with bulbs, self-sowers, perennials, clumps of bedding plants and climbers.
Our Speaker, Philip Oostenbrink, has been the head gardener at Walmer Castle since 2020 and taught horticulture in the Netherlands for 8 years prior to coming to England. He gave a fascinating and visually illustrated talk on the increasingly fashionable Jungle Gardening. He described how to create at home a garden or patio full of lush, green foliage plants and how to combine different leaf shapes and textures. He said he has been passionate about plants since early childhood, describing himself as a “plantaholic”. He currently holds 4 National Plant Collections. His stall at the Hampton Court Flower Show this year won a gold medal. He said he was inspired by the tropical Tresco Abbey Gardens (see our previous talk on this) and Will Giles’ Exotic Garden in Norwich.
Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society 