Meetings 2017-18

8th Sep - ‘Unnatural Gardening; an Exploration of Fashions in Gardening' Peter Williams

Peter, a former principal lecturer at York St. John's University, is a plant scientist, ecologist, statistician and lifelong gardener. For many years he ran a small nursery and plant propagation is one of his passions. He now talks and writes about horticultural matters and opens his magnificent five acre woodland garden in Yorkshire for charity events.

The garden at 'Weathervane House' has long been considered one of Yorkshire's finest.

13th Oct - 'Wild Flowers and Waterways’ Mary Matts

Mary comes to us as a recommendation from Ruddington Garden Club and will be directing us into the natural world to look at Plant life on our waterways. She lives near Foxton Locks on the Grand Union Canal in Leicestershire and will explore the extensive range of plants associated with that habitat and the ways in which plant distribution is influenced by boat traffic, animals and ourselves.

10th Nov - 'The Garden in Winter' Jeff Bates

Jeff's career in horticulture began in 1970 as an apprentice gardener in the Royal Gardens at Windsor Castle. After training at the Berkshire College of Agriculture and Askham Bryan College in Yorkshire, he worked in landscape design and construction, finally becoming a senior lecturer in Horticulture in Derbyshire.

For the past twenty years, he has been a judge for East Midlands in Bloom.

8th Dec - Christmas Party

To celebrate our 60 years as a Horticultural Society (and one of our members’ 60 years on earth!) as well as the Festive Season, we will be offering refreshments and a historically based horticultural quiz and games at our December meeting.

We would be grateful if members could provide a plate of savoury finger food for the pot luck supper.

12th Jan 'Plants with a Purpose: Tudor Gardening at Cressing Temple' Rebecca Ashbey

Cressing Temple, owned now by Essex County Council, was given to the knights Templar in 1137 and its 13th century Barley and Wheat Barns are among the oldest timber barns and few surviving Templar buildings in England. The walled garden is faithfully reconstructed as a Tudor pleasure garden. Rebecca is the horticulturalist there and her talk will be a mixture of Tudor gardening, plants and folklore and the way it is represented at Cressing, the walled garden and the plants she grows.

9th Feb - ‘The Land of Condors and Monkey Puzzles- an Adventure in the High Steppe of Argentinian Patagonia’ Helen Picton and Ross Barbour

Helen has previously visited us to talk about the splendid Aster collection which she now co curates with her husband Ross at The Picton Gardens and Old Court Nurseries in Worcestershire.

Her visit to us was so appreciated that we have requested an encore and she will be accompanied, this time, by Ross Barbour, himself a distinguished horticulturalist.

9th Mar - 'Gardening with Trees in the 21st Century’ Tony Russell and AGM

Tony is a BBC garden writer and broadcaster, former Head Forester of Westonbirt Arboretum and editor of the annual publication 'Gardens to visit'. He is also a very well known lecturer and author and has consulted on projects for the National Trust, for the Berkeley family, owners of Spetchley Park and for Tom Hart-Dyke at Lullingstone Castle's World Garden.

We are delighted that he has agreed to visit us in Nottingham.

13th Apr 'Plants for the Connoisseur' Simon Gulliver

In 1995 Simon left his job in IT to study horticulture at Edinburgh Botanic Gardens. For one year he worked as a horticulturalist for Plant Heritage then moved to Birmingham Botanic Gardens as Area Supervisor. He was promoted to Plant Records Officer in 2005 then Plant Collections manager. While there, he built up a reputation as a lecturer in diverse topics as horticulture, plant identification, botany and taxonomy and biodiversity.

Since 2014 he has been a Garden and Parks Consultant for the National Trust, working with over 30 National Trust gardens in the Midlands, Lancashire and Cheshire.