The Annual General Meeting of Stone and Chrysanthemum Dahlia Society will be held on Thursday 9^th February, 7.00pm at Christ Church Centre, Stone ST15 8ZB for members only. Tea/coffee will be served from 6.30pm.

Our speaker for the evening (at 7.30 – guests welcome) will be Dr Peter Thomas from Keele University with a talk about Forest Fires.

At this meeting we will have no plant sales table. These will start again in March when our speaker will be Don Whitton with “Once Seen, Never Forgotten”.

Further details of these and all our talks and events are on our Programme and Events pages.

We are busy finalising our 2023 Programme of talks, trips and other events and they will be appearing on the relevant pages in the next few weeks.

Our next talk will be on (note the date – we got it wrong earlier!)

THURSDAY 12th JANUARY  7-30pm will be a ZOOM meeting in conjunction with Tendershoots – full login details on the TSGCN website.

       Speaker Doug Stewart “Ten Must Have New Plants”

The next few months have been planned and confirmed starting with our AGM –

THURSDAY 9th February  7-00pm AGM with meeting to follow at 7-45pm

       Speaker Dr. Peter Thomas  “Forest Fires”.

THURSDAY 9th March 7-30pm Speaker Don Whitton “Once Seen Never Forgotten”

THURSDAY  13th April  (no evening meeting) Spring Bus Trip – members will receive details soon via email.

Full details will be on the Programme and Trips pages once confirmed.

From all the messages received the December meeting was a great success, thanks to Peggy and all who helped, and as for the parking machine . . . !! A report has been sent in and we are hopeful that it will be in working order by February.

We look forward to seeing you in the coming year.

The Garden Club Committee would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Our next meeting will be held via Zoom on January 10th when Doug Stewart will tell us about Ten Must Have New Plants. Further details will be in your subscription emails which will be arriving in the next week or two so please look out for them – remember to check your spam folder too. Next year’s programme will be on the website shortly.

Photos from our Christmas meeting are now on the Photo Gallery page.

We have also had Christmas Greetings from the Dorothy Clive Gardens with a notice about opening times and days –

Wishing everyone a “Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” from all the Team at the Dorothy Clive Garden.

Thank you for all your support in 2022 and we hope to see you all at the Garden in 2023.

The Garden will be closed from Monday 19th December 2022 up to and including Thursday 5th January 2023 for the Christmas and New Year period.

The Garden will re-open on Friday 6th January 2023 from 10.00am to 4.00pm.  Our Tearoom will be open from 10am to 3.30pm and Gift Room from 11.00am to 3.30pm.

PLEASE NOTE The Garden will be open on Sunday 1st January ONLY- New Year’s Day from 10.00am to 3.00pm for those wishing to take a New Year stroll around the Garden. PLEASE NOTE the Tearoom and Gift Room will not be open.

We look forward to seeing you in the New Year either via Zoom in January or in person at our AGM in February; or even strolling round the Dorothy Clive Gardens on New Year’s Day.

First a very big thank you to all who supported our “Gardenalia”  bringing and also buying items. We made £112-50 for the club with left over items going to Oak Tree Farm and the Norton Bridge Katherine House Hospice Shop. It was unfortunate that Byron Machin was unable to come to talk about the Red Data List but we hope to be able to rebook him again soon. However members were able to enjoy the photos from their earlier holiday to Harrogate and watched a sample of a video from the ones available from TSGCN.

Our next club meeting is on Thursday 8th December at 2-30pm “Floral Designs for Christmas” with Peggy Leslie.   

(the photo is NOT one of Peggy’s creations – Chris just bunged a bouquet sent from her daughter into the nearest handy receptacle)

Coffee/tea and mince pies will be served from 1-45pm, this is a free members event and you do need a ticket. If you were not at the November meeting and would like to attend please contact Dawn Johnson to book. Do remember you will need to pay day time parking rates, the top meter takes cards and the lower down meter coins so come prepared.

 TSGCN are holding a Zoom Christmas Quiz in the evening at 7-30pm on Thursday 8th December, if you would like to take part as an individual/member or form a team just go to the TSGCN website for the details. There are some fabulous prizes to be won!

Our talk this month is given by Byron Machin on November 10th at the Christ Church Centre. Titled The Red Data List – a Tour of Britain’s Rarest Flora, Byron’s talk explains part of his quest to see them all, before it is too late. The Red Data list for Britain includes half a dozen plant species which represent the media’s idea of endangered species (for example the Lady’s Slipper Orchid and the Kilarney Fern) but in fact lots stand on the brink of extinction. This promises to be a very informative evening especially for those of us concerned by the depletion of our native wildlife.

Our November also includes our ever-popular Gardenalia – our sale of surplus gardening equipment as well as plants. It’s time to clear out the sheds and bring those things you haven’t used for several years to sell on to those who may be looking for just that item – from hoes to hoses and spades to secateurs!

Also in November you can join a Zoom talk via the Tendershoots Garden Club Network on Wednesday November 9th when Nancy Stevens will be giving a talk entitled “Shrubs Are Boring”  Really?……Are You Quite Sure? You can find more details on the Tendershoots website.

Our next meeting is on Thursday 13th October at the Christ Church Centre as usual. The speaker Richard Gulliver and his wife Mavis spent 27 years in the Hebrides engaged in wildlife surveys and teaching. In 2017 they were involved in the development of ” The Botanist Islay Dry Gin” this being the subject of Richard’s talk. One we think not to miss. Hopefully the pictures of gorse and hawthorn below will make more sense if you come to the talk!

Coffee will be served from 6-45pm and please remember we now have to pay for parking with the top machine taking cards and the lower machine will still accept cash.

Tender Shoots Garden Club Network has its first Autumn/ Winter talk on Monday 17th October on “Eythrope Walled Garden” at 7.15 for 7.30. The speaker is Francesca Page-Smith from the National Trust. Eythrope forms part of the Waddesdon Manor Estate and the link will take you to a short video with highlights from the garden. As a paid up member of the Gardening Club you can log in to any TSGCN talks. See Tender Shoots web site for more information.

The ever popular “Gardenalia” will be back at the November meeting so please look out any unwanted items – more details to follow.

We look forward to seeing you on the 13th.

We had a wonderful, informative and inspirational talk from Jack Willgoss of Wildegoose Nursery earlier in the month encouraging us to ‘think tall’ and go ‘higher and higher’ in our planting. Illustrated by many slides from their walled garden in Millichope Park’s former kitchen garden Jack took us through the seasons showing how taller plants can enhance our experience as we immerse ourselves in the planting. Several trays of plants were offered for sale and those trays were virtually empty by the end of the meeting – bags full of lofty grasses, asters, and Sanguisorba’s were seen bobbing home through the town.

The walled garden also featured in Gardener’s World on September 16th as Carol Klein explored the planting – worth trying to find on the BBC catch-up.

We then had a trip to Ashwood Nursery and John’s Garden a few days later and you can see some photos from that on our Photo Gallery page.

Our next evening meeting is on Thursday October 13th with a talk from Richard Gulliver on The Botanist Islay Dry Gin.

Welcome to Autumn and let’s hope it brings some much-needed rain for our poor parched gardens. Our first meeting after the summer is on Thursday September 8th at 7.30pm at the Christ Church Centre. We will welcome Wildegoose Nursery with a talk entitled Going Higher and Higher on using tall perennials to create an immersive atmosphere in the garden as they go through some of their favourite tall and even taller perennials and grasses and how they like to use them at Wildegoose.

If you have booked a place on our trip to Ashwoods Nursery and John’s Garden you should have received an email telling you the details for catching the bus and what to do about that all-important lunch. As a reminder – the trip is the following Thursday on September 15th.

In October we have a talk on the Botanist Islay Dry Gin given by Dr Richard Ward – details on our Programme page.

We have no meeting in August but there are plenty of gardens to visit both near and far – there are 12 NGS gardens listed for Staffordshire and Shropshire in the Yellow Book, or download their app onto your smart phone for holiday visits.

We have been invited to visit “Tilling Drive Allotments” on Sunday 14th August between 1pm & 3pm, this will give you the opportunity to discover one of Stone’s hidden gems and see what is involved in being a plot holder. This is the same day as the plot holders have a Flower & Vegetable Show.  Tilling Drive is off the Eccleshall Road, Stone – no postcode but you can use “what3words” to find the allotments and they are :- binders.great.player

At the end of the month at the Dorothy Clive Garden, Willoughbridge, there is a Plant Hunter’s Fairs on Sunday August 28 & Monday 29 – tickets are bookable.

You can find more links for gardens to visit on our ‘Links’ page and it would be wonderful if you could send us your photos to put on the website. Our Yorkshire holiday photos are on the Photo Gallery page.

Our next meeting is in September when we have a talk from Wildgoose Nursery on using tall perennials to create an immersive atmosphere in the garden. We also have a trip to Ashwoods Nursery and John’s Garden on Thursday 15th September and there are still a couple of tickets left – contact Helen if you want to snap them up.

At the end of June members of the Garden Club joined with members of the Hardy Plant Society for a holiday to Yorkshire to visit gardens and nurseries.

We are reliably informed that about 30 people went on the coach and came back with over 300 plants between them! Roy Alexander, a Hardy Plant Society member, took lots of photos and they have been (severely) edited down to these few for our report. We hope to have a slide show of many more of his photos one evening.

Brodsworth Hall and gardens

Golden Acre Park, Leeds

York Gate Garden also in Leeds 

Burnby Hall – home to a National Collection of over eighty varieties of Hardy Water Lilies

Opportunities for plant buying were plentiful, including at Daleside Nurseries

Breezy Knees Gardens and Nursery – 20 acres of gardens and specialist perennials nursery

and Stillingfleet Lodge Garden and Plant Nursery near York

Finally, on the way home, the group visited Don Whitton’s Firvale Allotments displaying many herbaceous perennials including the National Collection of Euphorbias, and where there was another opportunity to acquire a few more plants.

Our next meeting is in September, but before then we hope to bring you some more ideas (and photos) for gardens and places to visit during August.