Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society

Among the many photos received for the Virtual Show this last week have been quite a few taken at other times of the year so we thought as the final part of the Show we could have a round-up of this (very peculiar) year so far.

We start with January through to April

Then May

June

July

and finally August

We hope you have enjoyed this peek at members’ gardens and flowers over the last week. We have missed being able to meet up every month and our chats about our gardens over a cup of something after our speaker has finished for the evening – and we’ve really missed hearing all those inspirational and informative talks. This looks likely to continue well into next year as well, sadly. In the meantime we will try to keep the blog going with as many photos, hints, tips and links as we can find as it is one way to stay in touch with each other until something approaching ‘normal life’ can resume.

After a flurry of late entries we are able to bring you lots of flowers from our gardens today – all the photos taken in the last ten days or so.

plus a few more

and even more . .

and finally Fiona sent us this photo with a note – “I know this one isn’t exactly flowers in my garden, but I got it into Garden News and members might be interested? I’ve raised over £1000 now for Little Hearts Matter (LHM.org) at the garden gate”.

Congratulations to Fiona – and “well done” to all the members who have managed to get photos here on time.

As a finale to our Show tomorrow’s slides will feature those photos taken at other times of the year – gardens and flowers.

Its not only flowers providing colour and interest at this time of year. We are harvesting fruits and the berries and seed-heads of other plants are attracting a variety of birds as well providing a bit of movement and brightness in the borders.

We’ll be back tomorrow with more flowers from our September gardens.

We move on to ‘Gardens’ today as we show you some of our gardens and borders in photos taken last week.

Tomorrow we have photos of fruits, berries and seedheads providing us with September colour and interest.

Today we thought we’d bring you a few dahlias and chrysanthemums – some of them are grown for fun and some of them were destined for the Show last Saturday.

More from our gardens tomorrow . . .

This is the first installment of this week’s Virtual Flower (and Garden) Show from the Garden Club of the Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society. As we said in our last post – this is being held due to the cancellation of the Society’s Annual Show

We thought we would start the week with some flowers from our gardens in the last few days. Sit back and enjoy the show . . .

More pictures tomorrow . . .

Today (19th) should have been the 34th Annual Show of the Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society.

Sadly it had to be cancelled so instead we asked our Garden Club members to go out into their gardens during the last week to take photos.

Starting on Monday we will be presenting our Virtual Garden and Flower Show here – featuring not just chrysanths and dahlias but all sorts of flowers, fruits, berries and seedheads that have provided colour in the gardens recently.

Hopefully things will be back to ‘normal’ by next September and we will be able to hold our Annual Show again, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy this peek into our gardens over the next few days.

We regret that owing to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic we have decided to cancel all our Autumn meetings. We will review the situation again in November.

We hope to be able to book these speakers to come again once it is safe enough to meet.

Please keep sending any photos of your gardens and plants to us (address on your membership card) and we will feature them here.

These are a few from the last month

Not just gardens but Plant Fairs too.

Gardens are opening locally for the NGS – you will have to book a timed visit– and two to look out for are opening on Sunday July 26th:- Ruth and Clive Plant at Yew Tree Cottage are opening for the last time this season. and  Peter and Margaret Hargreaves’s lovely garden is open at Grafton Cottage.

Then there are a couple of Plant Fairs to look forward to as well –

Sandon Hall Plant Fair on Sunday 2nd August will be taking place. The fair will be held on the grass and gravel frontage outside the North of the Hall (not inside the gardens) and there will be 10 plant nurseries and 3 garden accessories. The opening times have changed and the FAIR OPENS AT 0900 AND CLOSES AT 1400 .The entrance fee is now £2 per person and entrance to the gardens (a bit overgrown due to the pandemic we are told) is by donation.

The Plant Fair at Dorothy Clive Garden will also be going ahead on Sunday 30th and Monday 31st August.
A limited number of tickets will be available for the event from this Monday (20th July). There will be two bookable sessions as follows on both days: – 10am to 1pm and 1pm to 4pm with a maximum of 300 places on each session. To reserve a place(s) please call Plant Fairs 01630 647237 or email info@dorothyclivegarden.co.uk  Tickets can be posted to your home address.
The entry fee is £4 per person for entry to the plant fair and gardens.

Here are a few more photos from our Instagram posts

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Sadly many of these Open Gardens weekends have had to be postponed for a year but many places have produced video tours instead.

Coming up is The Haywoods & Colwich Gardens which are not open this year but they have Virtual Open Gardens on-line. It will only be on line until the end of this month. “Not as sophisticated a presentation as Eccleshall but a good effort” is what we’ve been told!

Barlaston Open Gardens has also been postponed and you can find a video on their Facebook page.

Meanwhile here are some photos from our Instagram account