Wishing all our members – and readers – a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We look forward to seeing you at our meetings, Plant Sale and/or Show next year.

Welcome to a New Year and the first of a series of interesting talks at our Garden Club. This month local historian Andrew Dobraszczyc will be telling us about the Allotment Gardens of Trentham.

Our AGM, open to Members only, is at 7.30. The talk, open to all, will start at 8.00pm.

Our December meeting is on Thursday 13th and starts at the much earlier time of 2.30pm – we will be having an Afternoon Tea instead of an evening supper, which will be served at 3.30. The cost for this meeting will be £3.50, not £1.50 to help cover the cost of the tea. All refreshments are provided so no need to bring anything except yourselves (and your ticket)! If you were unable to attend the November meeting to buy your cream tea ticket please contact Helen Harrison.

Before tea our speaker is Janette Merilion from Billinghay in Lincolnshire who will talking about plants for the Festive Season, the title of her talk being Christmas Crackers. She is a garden designer and historian who has designed over 300 gardens to date and has done a garden-makeover series for Yorkshire Television.

Please remember you will need to pay for parking if you park in the carpark by the Centre.

Our next Garden Club meeting is on Thursday November 8th when Stan Griffin and Vickie Newman from Craig House Cacti, West Bromwich, will be our speakers. They have been RHS Chelsea Gold winners since 2009 for their cacti and succulent displays.

You will be asked to book and pay for your cream tea for the December meeting tonight – the cost will be £3.50.

Our annual ‘Gardenalia’ is on October 11th. This is a very popular sale of garden items and plants – search the back of the shed and the greenhouse and dig out those tools and pots you no longer use as they are almost certainly just what someone else has been looking for.

The evening will start with the GARDENALIA Sale before the talk, so do not miss the bargains and the fun of the sale, come early from 7pm & bring any garden items you have for sale,50/50 or donated to the club, we will as usual have a plant sales table.

The sale will be followed by a ‘Dahlias’ talk from Jason Smith, a National Dahlia Society judge, who has judged our Show on several occasions.

The 32nd Annual Open Show of the Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society will be held on September 15th at Walton Community Centre, Whitemill Lane, Stone. The Show is open to the public at 2pm. Flowers will be for sale at the show. See the Events page for further details.

Photos from the Show are now available on the Photo Gallery page.

We have no meeting in August, our next meeting is on Thursday 6th September – please note that this is a week earlier than usual. This is because our Annual Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society Show takes place on Saturday September 15th at Walton Community Centre – further details on the Events page.

Our speaker for the evening meeting is Michael Myers from Craven College, Skipton whose talk is entitled An Alternative Kitchen Garden.  He is an Alpine and bulb/hardy orchid enthusiast, so who knows what grows in alternative kitchen gardens – you will just have to come along to find out!

If you want go visiting gardens over the summer break don’t forget Barlaston Open Gardens on July 14th – 15th and then have a look at our Links page for further ideas. There are over thirty gardens listed in the NGS Yellow Book as opening over the summer.