Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society

What is flowering (or providing some colour) in your garden at the moment? Becky has sent a few photos of the “scruffy flowers” in her garden –

Send us your photos too and have them featured here and in our Photo Gallery.

Our next Zoom talk via TSGCN is on Tuesday January 25th at 7.30 pm when Andrew and Amy Skea from Potato House will tell us all about potatoes and varieties.

Quick update – the afternoon talk from TSGCN via Zoom today,Wednesday the 12th January, at 3pm arranged by Evesham G&C has a change of speaker and topic.

The talk will now be given by Richard Barnes, who’s worked as a Landscape Architect and Garden Designer for more than 30 years.   A published writer and photographer, he is a member of the Professional Garden Photographers Association and of the Garden Media Guild.
Richards talk is entitled ’50 Favourites’  illustrating 50 different plants, ranging from alpines to large trees, the usual and unusual, looking at what makes them a favourite of his, their uses in the garden, requirements for good growth and, hopefully, providing inspiration to try a plant that you might not have considered before.

There are some plants that provide colour all year round – the ‘evergreens’. These really stand out at this time of year when everything else can seem a little drab. Some are just ‘green’ like the fern, or the laurel acting as a backdrop to the grass.

Others are variegated and can add a real splash of colour to dark corners.

A few have new shoots waiting to emerge that are a slightly different colour – the yellow of new growth on the yew or the violet tips of the Hebe.

Some change colour in the winter, becoming red like the Leucotho or the Star Jasmine while others have colour that intensifies over the winter like the Nandina.

Others like the almost black Ophiopogon take a blue-ish hue in the low winter sun.

Have a good look around your garden this month – you might be surprised by how much colour there is.

In the meantime don’t forget there is a TSGCN talk (via Zoom) at 3pm on Wednesday Jan 12th on the Gardens of Capability Brown – details on our Programme page or the Programme page of the TSGCN website.

Berries in the gardens today – those that the birds haven’t yet got around to eating.

Today we have some of the plants flowering in the gardens – some of them looking past their best but still clinging on.

We start with flowering shrubs – from heather, through Mahonia, Viburnum, Daphne and winter flowering honeysuckle; not to mention a Skimmia and a very early rosemary and azalea

What shrub was flowering in your garden on New Year’s Day? Come back tomorrow for more colour in the gardens.

As we welcome 2022 with the hope that things will improve after the last two years (!) and as it is a warm dry day today we trust you have gone out into your gardens to take some New Year’s Day photos of those plants giving colour and interest at this time of year. Send them to us and we can have a virtual show here over the next few days / weeks.

So whether you have a Hellebore

or a yellow jasmine

or a primula

or even a rose (however tatty)

take a snap and send it in.

The Committee have been busy trying to plan a programme for 2022 (next year in case you have lost track of time too) so please keep an eye out for an email or letter arriving in the next few weeks outlining those ideas and plans. Given the ever-changing effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic these plans may be subject to change so keep following us here too.

In the meantime we are continuing to support and be a member of The Tender Shoots Garden Club Network which has done so much to provide us with a gardening-related talk every month over the last year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Note that they now have a website as well as a Facebook page.

The next talk via Tender Shoots and Zoom is on December 21st at 7.30 – grab a glass of something and a mince pie and relax from the stress of Christmas preparations while listening to Alan Edmondson talk about The Shade Garden.

We send our best wishes to you all for Christmas and the New Year when we hope we may once again be able to hold face-to-face meetings . . . eventually.

After Christmas perhaps you would like to get out into your gardens with a camera/phone and take a photo of whatever is in flower on New Year’s Day (or looking colourful like this frosted yew) – send photos to us for an online New Year photo festival.

Is it our imagination or has this year disappeared even more quickly than last year? The Committee have been busy trying to plan a programme for 2022 (next year in case you have lost track of time too) so please keep an eye out for an email arriving in the next week outlining those ideas and plans. Given the ever-changing effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic these plans may be subject to change so keep following us here too.

In the meantime we are continuing to support and be a member of The Tender Shoots Garden Club Network which has done so much to provide us with a gardening related talk every month over the last year and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The next activity that you are invited to join in with will be a Christmas Quiz – join in as an individual or form a team with friends and family to enter. There are prizes!

Christmas Quiz night – December 8th at 7.30 pm – via Zoom. Contact TSGCN for details on how to join in.

There is also a talk later in the month on gardening in shade –

Tuesday Dec 21st – Alan Edmondson – The Shade Garden

There is only one talk scheduled for November through the Tender Shoots Garden Club Network and this is one that we are sponsoring.

Thursday 11th November at 7-30pm the talk from Doug Stewart  is titled Winter Thrillers.

On his website Doug says of this talk “Scent, stems and stunning colour, a winter garden can have it all…Winter gardens, filled with colour and scent really lift the spirits on even the coldest winters day, in this talk Doug reveals the secrets of creating a stunning winter garden.”

We hope to ‘see’ you there. Don’t forget that we have our own ‘Breakout Room’ at the beginning and end of each meeting so each participating club can chat with their own members.