Climbers, by Pip Bensley

On a snowy January evening Grayshott Gardeners welcomed Pip Bensley, who gave us a colourful talk all about climbers, and made us forget about the world outside for a while.

Pip Bensley with Programme Secretary Sue Wheeler

Pip is now a renowned florist, with 3 Chelsea Gold medals to her name, but she started her career in horticulture.  For many years she worked at Hillier, and during her time there she wrote a book all about climbers and wall plants.  It was her wealth of knowledge of these plants that she shared with us during the evening.

Pip talked us through the different types of climbing plants – self clingers, twiners and those that use thorns or prickles to raise themselves up to the sun.  She encouraged us to think about how a plant behaves before we place it in the garden, and to consider appropriate supports that the plant’s characteristics can take advantage of.  

She also reminded us that different varieties of climbers can have differing heights at maturity – and warned us against planting a Kiftsgate rose on a six foot arch, when really it is a plant that needs an acre of garden of its own.

Pip showed us beautiful images of honeysuckles, roses and clematis, and recommended varieties that do well for flower power and vigorous healthy growth.  She gave of lots of ideas for how to bring colour, height and scent to our gardens all year round, but mixed that with a wealth of practical hints that will hopefully make us all better gardeners!

Plant hunting round the world, by Nick Macer

Grayshott Gardeners rounded up its 2024 Programme of Lectures with a fascinating talk from Nick Macer, a specialist nurseryman and owner of Pan Global Plants, a nursery in Gloucestershire.

Nick Macer with Sue Wheeler (GG Programme Secretary)

Nick had what he describes as a “rebellious youth” – at school they said he was “bright but bored”. He dropped out before he was 16, and worked for a landscaping company to earn some money.  He soon learned that a life working outside appealed to him, and trained as an arboriculturalist at Merrist Wood, where he developed a passion (bordering on an obsession) for trees and plants.  In 1997 he persuaded the bank to loan him the money to set up his own nursery, and Pan Global Plants was born.

Nick has been on many, many trips around the temperate world, searching for attractive and unusual plants that will thrive in the UK climate.  In many countries this means seeking out the higher altitudes – and such remote spots bring their own challenges.  We heard of lightning bolts, marauding bears, fording rivers and sleeping in the open – not for the faint hearted.

It was fascinating to see amazing plants growing in their natural habitat, alongside the images of the same plants growing in his own nursery.  Many seeds and bulbils have been collected and nurtured on the nursery until they are ready for sale to eager customers.

By the end of the evening we felt like we had been around the world ourselves – albeit from the comfort of Grayshott Village Hall.  And since most of us are unlikely to be that adventurous, we were very grateful to Nick for sharing his experiences in such an entertaining way.

Winkworth Arboretum: The legacy of a remarkable man, by Peter Herring

This month Grayshott Gardeners welcomed Peter Herring, a self confessed “tree nerd” who has been volunteering at Winkworth Arboretum, near Godalming, for over 30 years.  During this time he has guided many groups around the arboretum, sharing his knowledge of the trees growing there.

The arboretum was the brainchild of Dr Wilfred Fox.  Dr Fox trained as a doctor, and became a renowned dermatologist, as well as using his medical skills on the front line in both World Wars.  Alongside his medical career he was Honorary Secretary of the “Roads Beautifying Association” which was established to plant trees along the new trunk roads that were springing up all over the country in the 1930s and 40s.

However, beautifying roads was just the start of his ambition. He bought land around his country house, Winkworth Farm, and in 1937 started to enhance the planting of trees for autumn colour.  He roped in friends and relations for tree planting parties, and the arboretum started to take shape.  When he retired he pursued his passion for horticulture, and set about planting for other seasons, so there is now always something to see, no matter what time of year.

Now in the hands of the National Trust, Winkworth Arboretum is one of our local gems.  It was lovely to find out how it came to be, and to follow its development over the years.  Our next visits will be richer for knowing the back story to this wonderful place.

Lessons from Great Gardeners, by Matthew Biggs

Photo by Rachel Warne

The September talk for the Grayshott Gardeners was a highly entertaining and informative talk by Matthew Biggs.  Matthew is a radio personality in the UK, best known for his appearances on the long running BBC Radio 4 programme Gardeners’ Question Time. He has been a professional gardener for over 25 years, since studying at Pershore College of Horticulture and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and has written over twenty books. 

The subject of his talk was about some of the great icons featured in his book ‘Lessons from Great Gardeners’.

The gardeners discussed were:

William Robinson, who hated the formal layout of gardens and is famous for his naturalistic style gardens.

Gertrude Jekyll who originally studied at the College of Art and brought art into the garden.

Ellen Wilmott whose very rich godmother gave her money enabling her to indulge her very expensive obsession of her gardens.

Beth Chatto OBE who was a sustainable gardener before her time although her husband Andrew Chatto played a big part behind the scenes in her success.

Roberto Burle Marx, a Brazilian abstract artist who took his art into the garden and played with different shapes and sizes in his designs.

Ganna Walska a Polish American who after marrying 6 times devoted her life to her operatic stage set gardens, selling $1m of her jewellery to finance her gardens.

Matthew was a very amusing speaker and Grayshott Gardeners hope he will visit again soon.

Matthew with our President Gordon Rae

Shrubs: the backbone of your garden, by Geoff Hawkins

On 14 August, Geoff Hawkins gave an interesting lecture on how to enhance your garden with different shrubs and how to care for them.

A man of many talents, Geoff used to manage the 30-acre estate of a private house in Alton, looking after the greenhouses, ponds, shrubs and trees, and now spends his time teaching and giving talks to organisations such as The Grayshott Gardeners. He has also shared his knowledge on radio shows.

His presentation showed the audience how different species of shrubs can be mixed with not only other shrubs but with herbaceous plants and bulbs to give the garden different moods, interest and colour, not only in Spring and Summer but all year.

He talked about the many variegated plants and how when planted together with plain shrubs or flowers can give a garden direction and interest. 

For the rest of the evening, Geoff talked about the different shrubs – giving tips on the best time to plant them and prune them, which ones were the best for flowers in the Spring or Summer and berries in the Winter.

The evening concluded with Geoff answering audience questions.

Viticulture in the South of England, by Alessandra Valsecchi

Programme Secretary Sue Wheeler with Alex Valsecchi

On 10 July the Grayshott Gardeners were treated to a very interesting talk by Alessandra Valsecchi on viticulture in the South of England.  Alex, an academic, studied at the University of Milan, achieving a doctorate in Horticulture specialising in fruit culture and viticulture.  She has had years of practical experience working on vineyards in Italy and New Zealand and worked at Wisley from 1999 to 2009 where she applied the principles of organic growing.  Alex joined Albury Vineyard as Estate Manager and is one of the few female vineyard managers in England. 

Albury Vineyard is situated on the southern slopes of the North Downs and has 40,000 plants. The vines are the traditional Champagne varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, as well as some Seyval and Pinot Gris. The vineyard produces organic fruit and Alex described how they do not use any herbicides and fungicides. Organic growing of vines has minimum intervention, fruit better and produce better wine, it encourages natural biology and microbiology. 

Saying that England was never known for its wine making, Alex told the audience that there are now 900 commercial vineyards in England, with 12 in Surrey.  Denbies, near Dorking, is the largest solo vineyard covering 120 hectares and having 300,000 visitors a year.  They host weddings and have a very good education building and café.  Chilworth Manor is one of the smaller vineyards in Surrey, its history dating back to the Augustinian Monks in the 11th Century.   The vines at Chilworth are of the Champagne variety.  In 1990 Nytimber in West Sussex, won trophies for its sparkling wine which now rivals Champagne

Alex described the best ways to cultivate vines; December to March is pruning and laying down, April to September is the time for weeding pest and disease control.  May is when new vines are planted and June to September is for bird protection and October is harvest time.  There was a diagram on how to prune vines.  The biggest challenges are deer, frost, weeds, birds, mildew and botrytis. 

Albury not only produces some of the best wine in England, but it also produces spirits, one being eau de vie de vin, Attila’s Bite (which is named after Alex’s Terrier, who keeps unwanted visitors away (such as pheasants) from the vineyard). 

SUMMER SHOW 2024

What a great show – the colourful hall was a joy to behold!

It was quite amazing to see how very many flowers had not only survived but even flourished in all the wind and rain we’ve had this year. In particular, the hydrangeas with their showy blooms had clearly thrived. My own roses had long-since finished blooming, so I was surprised, and pleased, to see the many wonderful entries in the rose classes – particularly the many bowls of roses.

The glorious floral arrangements belie the time and effort taken to produce these creations. Who knew you could cover a hat in leaves as part of the arrangement? These are the only classes which can use bought flowers and foliage, although many entrants raid their gardens instead. Once again, thanks go to Sue Erler for her novice flower arranging workshops this year which have encouraged many of us to give flower arranging a try – we particularly enjoyed the challenge of producing a design in a fruit or vegetable!

Conspicuous by their absence were tomatoes and runner beans which normally grace the display tables at this time of year … they’ll need more warmth and sunshine to start producing in any great quantity. And fewer slugs…However, there was a wide array of other fruit and vegetable entries, especially in the soft fruit categories.

Despite clashing with The Wimbledon Ladies Final, the show was very well attended especially by the local community who came along to enjoy the displays, buy plants, try their luck with the tombola and to relax over tea and delicious homemade cake. It’s always interesting to see which exhibits had been placed by the judges … no mean feat considering that judging is in accordance with the RHS Horticultural show handbook and the WI rules for home produce!

Many congratulations to the worthy winners of the various awards – especially to Ann Haussauer who won both the RHS Banksian Medal and the coveted ‘Best in Show’.

Home Produce Cup (Classes 67-75)Lynne Callender
Floral Arrangement Trophy (Classes 64-66)Gill Purkiss and Sue Erler
Photography Prize (Class 76: English Country Garden)Liz Munson
Mike Hallt Cup (Class 49: 3 potatoes of the variety supplied by the Society for the potato championship)Alan and Pamela Wright
Davies Rose Cup (Class 1-6: Roses!)Gill Purkiss
Smith Cup (Classes 1-34: Plants, flowers, pots and containers)Ann Haussauer
Davies Tankard (Classes 35-63: Fruit and vegetables)Lynne Callender
Novice Cup (Classes 1-75: All categories other than photography)Suzi Gordon
Littlejohn Rose Bowl (Classes 1-63: Plants, flowers, pots, containers, fruit and vegetables)Lynne Callender
Banksian Medal (Classes 1-63: Provided by the by the RHS as part of our club affiliation  Ann Haussauer
Best in Show PlateAnn Haussauer
L-R: L Munson, S Gordon, G Purkiss, S Erler, A Wright, P Wright,
A Haussauer, L Callender

Finally, many thanks go to the Shows team, supported by the Main Committee, who beaver away behind the scenes to pull together the Shows. The fact that each Show is a huge success masks the considerable amount of work required to stage it: months of planning; a flurry of activity once the entries are in and then a mountain of effort on the day. It sounds exhausting and I am sure it must be! It’s also great fun, so if you’d like to help in any way, please let Pamela, the Shows Co-ordinator know. Without the commitment and dedication of the Shows team there wouldn’t be any Shows. So, our grateful thanks go to them and all the people who support the Show in whatever way … where would we be without the all-important homemade cakes?!

There is still one award to present – the RHS Bronze Medal.  This is awarded to the person who has achieved most points across all classes for both the Spring and Summer Shows.  It’s our highest accolade and is awarded at the AGM – I wonder who it will be this year….

Here is a collection of photos from our Summer Show

Super Seasonal Displays, by Mark Saunders

On 12 June, Mark Saunders gave the Grayshott Gardeners a very enjoyable and informative lecture on how to have wonderful displays in your garden space during every season of the year.

He started with the Autumn Season when gardens can start to look a little drab after the Spring and Summer colours, but he pointed out that there are some plants which can flower until October, not forgetting that October is the time when you should be thinking about bulbs and sowing seeds which can be done inexpensively by ordering from catalogues.

Mark showed the audience some of the wreaths he made for Christmas, all the foliage was from the garden, demonstrating that the foliage from the garden can make colourful things to celebrate the festive season.    Wisley have created a winter display garden and some other public gardens have created a light display for this time of year.  During Mid-February, you should start sowing seeds in pots for the Summer.  Dahlias that were lifted should be potted up now.

Mark said seeds could be sewn directly into the ground in Summer as the ground is warmer.  The best way to do this is to mix seeds into compost and scatter on the beds.  This is a good way of filling spaces in the boarders.  Summer is the also the time to plant up colourful pots they are a good way of drawing attention to where you want peoples eyes to go. 

There are lots of gardens to visit for ideas such as Great Dixter, Wisley, West Dean, not forgetting the wonderful display of tulips at Arundel in West Sussex.

Mark Saunders is the head gardener of Fittleworth House.  The garden is part of the National Garden Scheme and is open by arrangement from 22 April to 22 August.

The Essential Guide to Raised Bed Growing, by David Hurrion

On 8 May the Grayshott Gardeners were treated to an informative and entertaining talk from David Hurrion about gardening with raised beds.

He described how the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Machu Picchu, Hugelkkutur, straw bale, hot beds, meter square growing, and the African keyhole method were all ancient, raised bed traditions.

David took the audience through the different types of raised beds and described how to make the simple mound bed, how a stone raised bed can add to the attractiveness of a garden and how they can be incorporated into a pond feature.  The advantage of raised beds is that they are good for disabled people, encourage wildlife and are easy to maintain. Herb towers are a good example of a space saving raised bed. One disadvantage of raised beds is that if you do not assemble the bed with the correct compost, topsoil, drainage and aeriation material, they can end up as a compost bin. 

David concluded his talk saying copies of his new book ‘The Raised Bed Book’ were for sale at the front of the hall and he would be delighted to sign your copy.

Davids video on how to build a raised bed is on his YouTube Channel.  You can find a lot of very interesting information on all aspects of gardening on https://www.davidhurrion.com/

Hardy Geraniums, by Jacqueline Aviolet

On 10 April, Grayshott Gardeners were treated to an enthusiastic and humourous evening talk by Jacqeline Aviolet who has been giving horticultural talks since the last century.  She runs her own nursery, Rosie’s Garden Plants, growing and selling plants via mail order.  She also sells plants at shows and at her talks.

Throughout her talk, Jacqueline demonstrated how to take cuttings of geraniums and gifting them to members of the audience.  She made the cuttings by taking the leaves off down to the base and then planting it into the side of a pot, not the middle.  She said that planting the base at the side of the pot was the best way of getting the plant to root.  She recommended taking cuttings from now until August and said that as she didn’t own a greenhouse, all her plants are cultivated outside.

Hardy geraniums are mostly pink, blue, mauve and white.  They grow in sun and also like shady areas.  They do not have to be taken inside in the winter,  and different geranium varieties will re-grow and flower from Spring to Autumn. Jacqueline described different varieties of plants, one of which was the Geranium Wlassovianum –  Martyn & Emma (a wedding present for her nephew) which she introduced and is in the RHS listing.  This geranium is a mauve/pink white eye, which flowers in July/September and likes sun and semi shade.

Jacqueline finished her talk with the history of geraniums,  including how the projectile dispersal unit of a geranium was discovered and how the seedhead was thought to resemble the head and beak of a bird.