Kevin Pratt from Village Plants, Stockport will be talking about the Private Plants and gardens of Cheshire – “For 30 years I was a gardener for the footballers and the millionaires in Hale and Alderley Edge, Cheshire. This is a rare look at the gardens you can’t visit. A look behind the electric gates of some footballers’ and racing drivers’ gardens and one TV celebrity chef, but certainly the very rich households. . . . A light hearted look at the gardens that are strictly PRIVATE.”

And while it is still February, it is not too late to go and look for snowdrops. The National Trust has a list of gardens in the Midlands renowned for their snowdrops here and the Great British Gardens website also has a list here with links to NGS gardens with snowdrops. Not metnioned by either is Hopton Hall  near Wirksworth in Derbyshire – their snowdrop walk is open until March 4th.

This photo of Mesa Verde National Park is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Dr Peter Thomas Reader in Plant Ecology at Keele University will be giving a talk on the Canadian Rockies. He has been at Keele since 1986. Following degrees in Biology and Ecology and after working for a year, he moved to the University of New Brunswick, Canada supported by a Commonwealth Scholarship to work for a PhD on the regeneration of trees after forest fires.  While at Keele he has spent sabbatical periods as Visiting Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada and as Bullard Fellow at Harvard University, USA.

Dr Thomas is also involved with the National Collection of Cherry trees at Keele, which we will be visiting later this year – see the Events page for details.

Our first meeting of 2018 starts at 7.30 with our AGM for Members only.

Non-members are welcome at 8pm to hear Gwen Johnson from Staffordshire Wildlife Trust talk about British Wildflowers.

Our December meeting is on Thursday 14th December when Robert Barton will talk about the Endon Well Dressing Festival. His talk will cover 170 years of history of the event. If you have been inspired by this talk and wish to see well dressings for yourself you can find a calendar of these on the well dressing website – the 2018 calendar will be available in the New Year.

There will also be our usual light refreshments with mince pies etc.

In conjunction with Regent Travel we have a trip to London on June 9th for three days when on Sunday we will explore some of the gardens open during London Open Garden Squares weekend. Saturday’s excursion is to RHS Wisley shown in the picture from Visit Surrey. The fully escorted trip also includes a visit to Oxford Botanic Gardens on Monday 11th. You can find further details of the trip here. This holiday is now open to all, not just members, so please contact Regent Travel in Stone (01785 818202) for full details and pricing.

Our November meeting sees Duncan Coombs return to give us a talk on The Gardens of France which will focus mainly on the gardens of Bagatelle and Giverny. Duncan Coombs has recently retired from Pershore College where he lectured in Decorative Horticulture. He now writes a monthly blog for the college cataloguing the changing seasons at Pershore.

If you would like to know more about gardens to visit in France there is a useful website to bookmark for your next holiday – ‘French Gardens‘.

On October 12th Rob Potterton of Pottertons Nursery in Lincolnshire will give a talk on Alpines and Bulbs – from Mountains to Market. You may well have come across this nursery at various Plant Fairs locally and they will be bringing plenty of plants for sale after the talk as well. You can pre-order plants for collection on the evening (save postage!) – look at the catalogues on their website for further details. It promises to be a fascinating evening.

We hope you have all enjoyed your summer breaks.We have already had a few holiday photos to put on our Photo Gallery page – do have a look – and please bring your photos to a meeting to add to the Gallery. All photos, memory sticks or discs will be returned, or of course, you could send them via email.

Our first meeting for the Autumn season is on Thursday 14th September when Paul Green of Greens Leaves Nursery will be bringing a van full of plants to talk about. You can find more details here.

On Saturday September 16th it is time for the 31st Annual Open Show at Walton Community Centre. Further details are here.

The Stone Chrysanthemum and Dahlia Society will be holding its 31^st Annual Open Show on Saturday September 16^th at Walton Community Centre, Whitemill Lane, Stone and is open to the public from 2pm. The Show is well-known in the region with growers coming from all over Staffordshire, the West Midlands and Derbyshire to take part. We are a very friendly group and novices are more than welcome to take part in the Show in both the Chrysanthemum and Dahlia sections – plenty of help can be given if required. You can download an entry form here. You will also need to download the brochure of Show Regulations for details of entry classes and the address to send your entry form. These General Show Regulations, classes for entry and further details can be downloaded here.

Blooms are brought to Walton for setting up on Friday from 3.30 – 8pm and on Saturday from 7 – 10am. Chrysanthemums will be judged, under National Chrysanthemum Society Rules, by Mr Arthur Wright and Dahlias by Mr Barry Smith under National Dahlia Society Rules. Stone Town Mayor will be presenting the trophies at 3pm and flowers will be for sale throughout the afternoon for collection at 4pm.

Walton Community Centre is in Whitemill Lane off the A34 northbound (towards Newcastle-under-Lyme) – the first turn on the left after the Shell garage on the roundabout. A link to a map via the postcode can be found on our Events page.

Please note that there is no meeting in August.

Our September meeting is on Thursday 14th at 7.45 when our speaker at the Christ Church Centre, Stone will be Paul Green. Paul will be talking about the plants he will bring with him from his nursery, Green’s Leaves in Newent – this is a specialist nursery of rare plants from around the world and is a regular at Plant Hunters Fairs. Paul Green has always worked in commercial horticulture, including a year in a specialist nursery in Oregon, USA. He has run his own nursery for over twenty years. There will be no members’ plant sale table as Paul will be bringing a whole van full of plants with him to illustrate his talk and to sell.

If you are out and about visiting gardens or shows during the summer why not share some of your photos with us. Either email one or two of them or download them onto a disc or memory stick to hand over at the next meeting. (You will get your disc/stick back!).

You can find ideas for gardens to visit on our Links page, including a link to the NGS website, but don’t forget that you can download the NGS app to your phone or tablet as well.

There are a few photos from the RHS show at Tatton Park on our Photo Gallery page.