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Reviews of past meetings December 2017 The last meeting of the calendar
year was a return visit from Bob Wallis (this time without Rannveig) talking about the Zagros Mountains.
This is an area of Iran, famed for its unbelievably rich flora, particularly
Bob's special interest Fritillaria. But we saw
plenty of other genera too - Dionysias, Tulips,
Anemones... - the list just goes on and on! November 2017 Our new season of talks started
with a superb talk on Snowdrops by Peter and Jackie Murray from Lincolnshire.
They covered all aspects of the genus, from differentiating between the more
common species, how to cultivate them, where to see good displays and choosing
some good (and not too expensive!) cultivars to start a collection. October 2017 AGM time again, so only time to fit
in a short talk by one of our members. Last year many members went on the
Group Outing to Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Liz Livermore shared some of
her personal highlights of the trip as well as comparing it with her first
visit to the garden over 20 years ago. September 2017 In September, Ray Drew from Essex
came to talk to us about Gesneriads, focusing on those which are
able to survive outside in temperate climates, and therefore of particular
interest to alpine growers. Quite an eye-opener for someone who only knew of
the more tender members of the family such as Streptocarpus
and African Violet.. August 2017 Stephen Cotton visited us this
month to tell us all about the plants which grow in "Green Spain".
The mountainous areas in the north are well known as a habitat for alpine
plants. But it was surprising to find that there are areas in the far south
which are quite high and get a significant rainfall due to effect of the Atlantic
ocean and have an interesting flora of their own. July 2017 This month we welcomed John Evans,
who gave us a superbly informative presentation on techniques for photographing
alpine plants. Jon has for many years been one of the team of official show
photographers and has had numerous photos published in the AGS bulletin and
on the AGS website.
June 2017 Our speaker this month was John
Page who has a special interest in the history of rock gardens and
particularly bulbs (he serves on the RHS Bulb Committee). He told us all
about Alpines in Botanic Garden all around the world, starting with the
oldest botanic gardens in Italy, then moving to more modern gardens in Denver
in the USA and Dunedin in New Zealand, and many in between. May 2017 May was our member's evening, and
we had an "Alpine Gardener's Question Time" this year. The panel
was Tony Hale who specialises in Saxifrages, Peter
Jones a Cyclamen enthusiast and John Spokes who runs Little Heath Farm
Nursery. This was very popular with member and revealed that it wasn't just
the panel who were expert alpine growers. April 2017 At April's meeting, Maren Talbot from Buckinghamshire gave a very interesting
and comprehensive talk about Pleiones, a genus of
lovely dwarf orchids. Although they come from Asia, they are quite easy to grow
in Britain as long as you keep them dry in their dormant period. March 2017 This month Arthur Nicholls gave us
a very interesting talk on the flowers of Armenia. This small country
squeezed between Turkey,
Georgia and Azerbaijan has a remarkably diverse flora. Alpine
flowers in the Caucasu in the north and woodland,
marsh and even sub-tropical plants further south. If you like bulbs,
particularly tulips and irises, Armenia is the place you must visit. February 2017 This month our secretary, David
Livermore, gave us a talk on a trip he made to the Drakensburg Mountains in
South Africa, including a trip into Lesotho up the spectacular Sani Pass. Not only were there lovely flowers, but
beautiful scenery and some of the wildlife Africa is famous for. Certainly a
place worth visiting if you want to escape from the January cold. December 2016 This month we had a very
interesting talk with stunning photographs by National Collection holder Tony
Goode from Norwich on the genus Crocus. Tony explained how to get the best
out of these lovely flowers and how with careful choice of species, you
should get flowers from late Summer through to Spring - eight months of the
year. And if you're growing them in pots,
why not enter them in the monthly competition in February - there's a class
especially for bulbous plants. November 2016 A bumper turnout
for a first rate talk by John Mitchell from RBGE on "The Stans" - Afghanistan, Tajikstan,
Uzbeckistan and Kyrgystan
- officially known as "In the Footsteps of the Snow Leopard"! It
had it all - interesting and unusual flowers, amazing scenery, a look at the
people and culture of the area and eventually a snow leopard. And a very well supported monthly
competition. Thank you to everyone who brought plants or photographs and
congratulations to the winners - full details in the newsletter October 2016 The October meeting is always our
AGM, where we review the past years events, accept the accounts, elect the
Officers and Committee for the next year and present the monthly competition
awards. Debby Horsman stepped down from the
Committee due to other commitments but will continue to support the Group and
attend meetings when she can. Thanks were given to Debby for all the hard
work she has done over the years. This leaves the Committee a little thin on
the ground, so please think hard about volunteering. Cups were awarded for the aggregate
points for the monthly competitions over the 2015 / 16 season. The winners
were as follows: Open section: Sue and Colin Buxton,
Novice Section: Debby Horsman and Artistic Section:
David Livermore After the meeting there was a plant
sale and, as 2016 is the Group's thirtieth birthday year,
some delicious party food instead of the usual biscuits. September 2016 Martin Sheader
gave an excellent talk on the AGS Trip to Northern Peru. It is always nice to
see and hear about plants from areas most of us will never get to. In this
case, most of the plants are especially interesting as they are not in
general commerce August 2016 Christine and Jim McGregor
entertained us with a description of some of the many plants to be found in
their own garden in Worcestershire, including alpine bulbs as well as larger
hardy plants July 2016 This month Doug Joyce made a return
visit to the Group with a talk about the plants of southern Sweden -
including the islands of Oland and Gotland. This was an area well known to
Carl Linnaeus and listening to Doug's talk we really felt we were following
in the footsteps of the great man. June 2016 This month we were treated to an
amusing and highly informative talk by that ever popular speaker Vic Aspland. He gave some very practical advice on how he
solved those problems that all alpine gardeners have - moving house and
moving your whole garden at the same time and how to go away on a three week
holiday in the height of the growing season and
still win a Farrer medal a few days after you come
back! May 2016 We had two speakers at our members
evening - Rob Amos talking about Plant Conservation and Liz Livermore with
another talk on Japan - this time the temple gardens of Kyoto. April 2016 This month Clive Daws and Stephen Waters gave us a talk on the Burren, that remarkable area of limestone pavement in
Ireland where Mediterranean and alpine plants grow side by side. The monthly
competition was extremely well supported - possibly a record number of
entries. March 2016 This month we had a talk by Chris Birchall of Tale Valley Nurseries focusing on the genus Rhodohypoxis. Not only did he describe the cultivation of
the various species and cultivars, he took us on a tour of the Drakensburg
mountains and the Sani Pass in Lesotho where Rhodohypoxis and some other lovely alpines grow in the
wild. February 2016 At our first meeting of the new
calendar year, the speakers were two of our own members, Roger and Penny Gray
with a talk entitled "Primulas, Pedicularis, Prayer Flags and much more in Sichuan & Quinghai ". Fortunately the weather was much
better than this time last year and there was a good turnout for this very
interesting talk. December 2015 At our last meeting of the calendar
year we welcomed back Peter Sheasby, who gave us a
tour of the Caucasus mountains, both the Russian and Georgian sides. This is
an area very rich in botany and has a range of habitats from steppe and
grassland at low levels, through forest, to the high alpine areas. As always
Peter's slides were superb and his encyclopedic knowledge of the plants,
without referring to a single note!, was astounding.
We were much luckier with the weather this month - in fact unseasonably mild for December - so many more of our members were
able to enjoy Peter's talk. November 2015 We were unfortunate that the
weather was very foggy which impacted on attendance, but those who did
venture out were rewarded with a superb talk from Tim Lever of Aberconwy Nursery about his travels in the mountains of
the Arunachal Pradesh in North East India. We were introduced to a wide range
of woodland and high alpine plants as Tim took us from the relatively low
forests up to above the tree line at 4000 metres or
so. As well as the plants there were breathtaking views of the Himalayan
scenery and we learnt something about the people who live in that harsh
environment. October 2015 This month was our AGM, where we
review the past years events, accept the accounts and elect the Officers and
Committee for the next year. Colin and Sue Buxton stepped down from the
Committee and Jasmine Dorricott
joined it. Thank you to Colin and Sue for all the work they have done
over the past few years, especially for the Group outings which Sue will
still continue to organise. Cups were awarded for the aggregate
points for the monthly competitions over the 2014 / 15 season. The winners
were as follows: Open section: Sue and Colin Buxton,
Novice Section: Jasmine Dorricott and Artistic
Section: Elsie Willett After the meeting there was a bulb
sale and a short talk from Liz Livermore on the Gardens of Tokyo - some
"rock" gardens with a difference. September 2015 We welcomed back Kit Strange from
Kew as our guest speaker. Kit has given us several practical demonstrations
in the past but this time it was a presentation about a project she has been
working on in the Falkland Islands. She was working alongside local
horticulturalists to collect and propagate native plants. These were then
used to repopulate the areas cleared of mines and also sold to local people
to encourage them to grow local species rather than introduced aliens. Kit
has also helped establish a collection of Falkland Island plants at Kew. August 2015 Diane Clement was our speaker in
August with an extremely informative talk on Cyclamen and Hepaticas - two
genera she is particularly passionate about. As well as comprehensively
covering the major species and their habitats, she described their
cultivation in great depth and delighted us all with some stunning
photography. July 2015 In July, Stephen Cotton gave us a
very interesting talk based around several trips he has made to the
South Tyrol. This area of Northern Italy, dominated by the rugged and
beautiful Dolomites, was the scene of some fierce battles between Italy
and the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire a hundred years ago. Hard to
believe it now, seeing the tranquil mountains and valleys covered in flowers.
June 2015 Our June speaker was Corinne Price,
manager of the Shuttleworth Trust's Swiss
Garden, talking about this historical Regency garden which has recently
undergone major restoration. May 2015 In May we enjoyed a fascinating
talk by Rick Lambert describing a visit he made to China, giving us insights
not just into the wonderful plants, but also the culture and people of this
vast country. April 2015 In April we had our annual Members
evening, featuring short talks from Debby, Liz and David. We discovered Debby
is a passionate Galanthophile - growing a
staggering number of these little beauties in her garden. Then, Liz told us
about her travels around Europe to see her favourite alpine (the gentian) in the wild and her not
too successful attempts to grow them back home. Finally, David showed us some
of the lovely wild orchids which can be seen in Anglesey in June, ranging
from some reasonably common Marsh Orchids to the exquisite and rarer Dune Helleborine. March 2015 For our March meeting we welcomed
back Jim Almond with a talk on his Juno Iris collection. The alternative
title of his talk was "Growing Junos with
pots, grit and a hammer!" Well, we found out what the hammer was for -
the Junos grow such big roots that it's
sometimes the only way to get them out of the pot at repotting time. Jim gave
us a very detailed and comprehensive guide to how to succeed
with these irises, which are often considered a difficult group.
His photographs were superb and certainly inspired us to try to grow some of
these beautiful flowers. February 2015 At our first meeting of the New
Year our speaker was Alan Outen with the
subject "Orchids can be Alpines too". As well as being a member of
the Group, Alan is a professional botanist and ecologist and leads wildlife
tours for Naturetrek. His superb slides illustrated
orchids from all over the world, some living in cold high altitude locations
and others preferring warmer habitats. He explained which ones can be
classified as Alpines and highlighted some of the recent nomenclature changes
within the various genera. Alan has built up quite a collection of
orchids himself, both hardy and more tender
varieties, so even more impressive that many of the photos were of his own
plants. After a feast of these exotic
beauties it was quite a shock to step out and find that several centimetres of snow had fallen during our meeting. Not a
nice drive home for our members. Despite the weather we had a reasonable
number of entries for the monthly competition. December 2014 At our last meeting of the year we
welcomed David Charlton from Derbyshire with a talk on some of his favourite plants: mats, cushions and carpets.
But these weren't ones from his own collection
or close to where he lives - they were from two very different places at
opposite ends of the planet! New Zealand - which we had all heard of
and some of us had been to; and Svalbard -
which few of us had heard of and none of us had been to!
David was fortunate to visit both these places in the space of 6 months and
so it enabled him to compare and contrast the plants he found there. Although
so far apart there are great similarities in the habitats and consequently
the plants have used the same methods to adapt to and
survive in the harsh conditions. The scenery was spectacular,
especially the mountains in the South Island of New Zealand, and in
Svalbard we discovered a new hazard to botanising
in the field - polar bears! November 2014 For the first meeting of the new
season, Bob and Rannveig Wallis treated us to an
amazing pictorial tour of their own lovely hillside garden in South Wales.
They experience a wet, windy and sometimes very cold environment, but
have expertly adapted the site to provide a range of habitats to extend the
range of plants they can grow. This talk featured just the outside planting,
but many of their slides showed a tantalising
glimpse of some seriously large greenhouses. Perhaps the subject
of a future talk? As expected, these very popular
speakers attracted a large audience, so large we seriously thought we might
run out of chairs and cups and saucers! |
