Talks 2024
Members Free. Non-Members £4.00 on the door.
All talks take place at Dulverton Town Hall, Fore Street, Dulverton.
7.00pm for 7.30pm start unless shown otherwise.
Light refreshments on arrival.
Thursday 18th January – BECKY SEARLE - “No Dig Gardening”
Becky will look at why ‘no dig’ gardening works and the importance of why we should use this method in our own gardens. She will be sharing gardening tips and advice based on science and teaching people how to employ plants and nature to work for us.
Thursday 15th February – ROB VINCENT – “House Plant 101”
Hutch House Plants was established in 2017 and is Exeter’s only dedicated house plant outlet offering thousands of house plants suitable for home and office. They have exhibited at the Devon County Show and had an award-winning display garden at the RHS Rosemoor Flower Show in 2021. Rob will be bringing along a selection of plants and will focus on tips for success with house plants, common pitfalls and mistakes that people make. If you have any house plants that you’re having particular problems with, please bring along a photograph.
Thursday 21st March – ANDREW HUGHES – “Backswood – a Project for the Environment & Wildlife”
Like most traditional Devon farms, Backswood is made up of several small fields and many hedgerows. These are vital to all types of wildlife providing homes for mammals, food for insects and nesting sites for birds. There are a number of wildflower meadows on the farm which consist of a wide range of native flowering species delivering essential pollen and nectar for pollinators.
Thursday 18th April – Dr DAVID USHER – “Gertrude Jekyll - Plants and Designs”
David has been a professional gardener for 50 years beginning at Bath Parks department and then studying at Cannington College. In 1983 he moved to Hestercombe Gardens where he was head gardener of the Lutyens-Jekyll garden for many years. Gertrude Jekyll was an artist, craftswoman and gardener and has had a lasting effect on horticulture worldwide. David will explore her talented life, her interests and show how these elements shaped her gardening and still influence our gardening practices today.
Thursday 16th May – JOHN ADDISON – “Plant Propagation”
John has been in horticulture for 50+ years and in that time
has been a judge at the Chelsea Flower Show and a part-time teacher at
Cannington College. His talk will explain how to take cuttings for plant
propagation and the different methods we can use.
Thursday 20th June – KATHERINE CROUCH – “My Chelsea Adventures”
Katherine returns to talk about her experiences at the Chelsea Flower Show where she won a Gold award for her garden design in 2013. This promises to be a most enjoyable and amusing talk – as all her previous talks have been!
Thursday 19th September – Dr FRANCIS BURROUGHES - "Illegal Immigration"
Dr Burroughes makes a very welcome return visit to talk about the fascinating story of how many of our favourite garden flowers and vegetables arrived in this country. This talk will be of particular interest to anyone interested in the history behind their own back garden.
Thursday 17th October – SALLY MORGAN - "Climate Change Garden"
Sally is a botanist and lifelong organic, ‘no-dig’ gardener.
She has written many books including ‘The Climate Change Garden’ and ‘the
Healthy Vegetable Garden’. Her talk will centre on climate change in the garden
- what’s happening to our climate, how to cope with too much water in the
garden, how the warming winters are affecting our fruit trees and how we can
adapt our gardening methods to create a more resilient garden that can cope
with the extremes of weather we may see in the future.
Thursday 21st November – TOBY BUCKLAND - "How Not to Garden - Practical tips for a garden that looks after itself"
Back again for another very worthwhile talk, something that we’re all very keen to embrace – reducing the number of hours spent labouring in our gardens! This will be a ticket only event. Details will be published nearer the date.