Chalfont St Peter Garden Club Newsletter - March 2004
Chairman: Charles Flawn
Secretary: Linda Hills-Harrop
Garden Hut Manager Cliff Thayer
Dear Member, As I write this the north wind doth blow and well
have snow, oh I do hope not as I would love to go and visit some of
the lovely gardens last months speaker told us about. See list on
Page 2. Meetings: This months meeting will be at 8pm on
Wednesday 17th in the Church Hall when we have our AGM
followed by a talk on Genealogy by Harvey Weiner. Harvey has
wide experience of tracing family history back to the Great
War and further back. Itll make a change from gardening!
The Garden Hut will be open on all Sundays from
10.00 am to 12 noon. Very important, you must show your
yellow Membership card. A discount of 10% will be offered on
all purchases of £20 and over until 14th March. Growbags
will be delivered on Wednesday 17th March for sale from
Sunday 21st these will cost £1.30 each, same as last year.
Any Member willing to help with the delivery please contact
Cliff on 01494-873401. The Hut is well stocked for all your
Spring needs. Hanging baskets and a good selection of gloves
are available. A new stock of Canes have arrived, all sizes
are available. Free loan lawn fertilizer distributors are
available to members purchasing lawn care products. Help
Required. Have you a few spare hours a week to do some
garden maintenance and mowing to kindly help someone. Please
ring ------------- Janes Garden Tips
Plug plants are one of the best ways to achieve quick
results in the garden, if you dont have facilities to raise
plants from seeds. The variety is enormous and you should be
able to find just the right plug selection for hanging
baskets, containers and bedding displays either by mail
order or from the garden centre. Order by mail order now to
obtain the best selection for delivery from end of March to
May. However if you are buying from the garden centre buy
early to ensure the best choices, which can be potted up and
grown on in warm 61-65 o F frost-free bright conditions
until the danger of frost has passed. Now is a good time to
sow hardy annuals outside in soil that has been lightly
forked over, dont add manure or compost because rich soil
promotes soft growth with few flowers, just add a light
dressing of general fertilizer (Growmore), sow in informal
drifts making sure taller varieties are towards the back.
Check over ponds and remove debris and leaves, re-start pond
pumps and filter if they were turned off over the winter.
Prune roses before the new shoots have grown too much. Start
to plant up summer bulbs now. As winter primulas and
polyanthus finish flowering dig up clumps trim off old
foliage and divide before replanting. As young shoots of
hostas and delphiniums appear protect from slugs and snails
using your preferred method (see page 2). Start to sow
vegetables at regular intervals in prepared protected
seedbeds, for small seed in shallow seed drills sprinkle
multi purpose compost along the drill to provide a buffer
against weeds and give more reliable germination. Sow
carrots, radish, lettuce, parsley and spinach. Use wider
seed drills (spade width) for peas and broad beans. Plant
early potatoes and onion sets, but with all early sowings
keep an eye on the weather and protect seedlings from heavy
rain by covering. Protect emerging leaves of potatoes with
cloches of fleece if frost is forecast. Coach outing.
To Abbey House Gardens at Malmesbury, Wiltshire on Wednesday
2nd June. Cost £14.50 per person. Coach leaves Church Lane
Car park at 9.30am returning at about 7pm. BOOK NOW by
sending your form and cheque to Keith Gould.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I require ( ) Tickets for (name)
..
Address
Phone
Number
..
I enclose my Cheque payable to Chalfont St. Peter Garden
Club for the sum of £
.
Please send to Keith Gould at -------
Or hand in at the Hut on Sunday Mornings.
Summer Show 2004 on 21st August. Your committee is
already at the stage of detailed planning. We are going to
reinstate the Junior Challenge Cup for the best overall
exhibitor in the Junior Classes. At the suggestion of one of
our regular exhibitors, we are introducing a class for "Pot
plant in Fruit". So if you have a small lemon or orange
tree, start talking to it encouragingly! As ever we shall be
offering exciting new challenges to the Floral Art experts
as well as to the Domestic classes enthusiasts. For our
vegetable, fruit and flowers enthusiasts, we confidently
look forward to your usual standard of excellence!
Container Grown Plants and Trees. Plants in containers
are the norm these days, bare roots specimens are hard to
find. Container-grown plants are prone to root girdling,
when roots spiral round inside the pot, which eventually
leads to the root system strangling itself. Before planting,
if the roots are showing, tease them out and plant so they
grow away from the root ball. Container manufacturers have
been trying to solve this problem by supplying pots with
ridges or dimples to encourage roots to grow downwards. Most
pots are either black or brown, which exclude light and
absorb heat in the summer, which can damage the root
HDRA The Organic Organisation. The Club Spring
magazine is now available at the Hut. The membership card,
which you can borrow, gives free entry to gardens at Ryton
Coventry, Yalding Kent, Audley End Kitchen Garden Essex, and
to RHS Wisley. For more information about borrowing the Card
for HDRA and RHS Wisley, please inquire at the Hut on Sunday
mornings. Pests. Protect delphiniums, hostas,
tulips and other emerging shoots from slugs and snails. Slug
Ban and Snail Ban are barrier products made from powdered
rock. They must be applied in a wide band round vulnerable
plants and cause severe irritation to the molluscs slime
glands if they cross it. RHS Website. The gateway
to gardening has been extended to include a new way of
choosing suitable garden plants. The RHS Plant Selector
helps you to select plants that will suit your particular
garden conditions. It contains details of 4,500 plants (2500
if you are a non-member) at the moment, but this will be
extended. Well worth a visit,
www.rhs.org.uk.
Open Gardens
March Sun 14th 2-5pm Whitchurch gardens. 5 very different
gardens in this village on the A413 four miles north of
Aylesbury.
Sun 21st 2-6pm Campden Cottage, 51 Clifton road, Chesham
Bois. 01494-726818.
Wed 31st 10-5pm Waddesdon Manor Gardens and Water gardens
01296-653259
April Sun 4th 2-6pm Long Crendon Gardens. 9 gardens in this
village just north of Thame.
Turn End, Townside, Haddenden. Near Thame This garden has
been voted as one of the 50 best gardens in Europe. Sun 11th
2-6pm Overstroud Cottage, The Dell, Frith Hill Gt. Missenden
on the Chesham road |
