What a vast array of plants you will get to explore if you join the ranunc group. They will keep you going all year. Study days around the country, newsletters and zoom lectures, the last being Andrew Ward on his exciting sand beds. Needless to say, all members are enthusiastic and friendly just like the Essex HPS group.
To whet your appetite, at this time of year, hepaticas and helleborus orientalis. Both are jewels in the floral department. Hepaticas, japonica can be more difficult to grow but noblis can seed anywhere, even in the cracks in the paving.
Both benefit from being displayed floating in a dish of water, hellebores especially so as they shyly droop their heads, but some can be quite pretty viewed from above. Cut the leaves off in November or December so that they can display their beauty to the full. Ashwood Nursey are renowned for their stunning cultivars but treasures can be picked up in local garden centres. The market now has many hybrids but Anna’s red and Penny’s pink are hard to beat. Their silver veined leaves add to their attraction. There are of course many more hellebores to enjoy, why not explore. Just what we need to cheer us up in February and March.
Our next meeting is this Sunday 17th March at Wickham Bishops Village Hall. Our guest speaker is Tony Goode. His talk is ‘Bulbs for all Seasons’. Doors open at 1.30pm.
‘A long time member of the Alpine Garden Society, Tony’s passion for growing bulbs goes back to childhood. He has been an occasional contributor to gardening journals, lectured around the UK for over twenty years. His photos have enjoyed some success in plant photography competitions. He grew a wide range of bulbs in his Norwich garden for thirty years, including a National Collection of Species Crocus, before relocating to Wales. In Wales he continues to grow (too) many bulbs and has discovered a passion for pottery too. Bulbs for All Seasons covers a selection of those that Tony has grown, covering bulbs that provide colour at different times of year. Tony will bring photocards and some plant related pottery for sale plus maybe a few plants.’
We had a really interesting lecture from Lynne Moore of Moore and Moore Plants. Below are two plant lists. There are so many plants to choose for a shady area.
Our next meeting is this Sunday 18th February at Wickham Bishops Village Hall. Our guest speaker is Lynne Moore from Moore & Moore Plants based in Billericay. Her talk is ’52 Weeks in the Shade Garden’. Doors open at 1.30pm.
Lynne has gardened for as long as she can remember. Her first memories are picking snowdrops from her grandparents garden (snowdrops are still a favourite). Always encouraged by her grandad Jack, her knowledge and enthusiasm grew until such times that she had her own little garden at her first flat. Grandad duly propagated a number of plants to fill this little plot, many of which Lynne still has today in her current garden. “Without my Grandad I wouldn’t be doing what I am. I owe him so much.” She’s a complete plantaholic who’s always on the look out for something new, different or unusual to grow. Lynne gave up working as a Senior Fingerprint Expert in the Metropolitan Police Forensic Directorate in February 2016 after 25 years service to work with the plants full time. “I love what I do. I’m so lucky.”
Come and visit our stall at the Alpine Garden Society Early Spring Show and Plant Fair, Saturday 2nd March. The venue is Chelmsford City Racecourse CM3 1PQ.
What do you do in January/February? Some people suffer from SAD.
My remedy is to get out in the garden.
These tough little beauties are prostrate in the frost but a bit of sunshine and warmth revives them. Supported by a host of other winter flowers they lift the spirits. The HPS special interest group host a meeting at this time of year and also run zoom lectures. A boon on long winter evenings. Why don’t you join?
But beware, galanthomania can bcome an addiction! The most expensive snowdrop so far on ebay was ‘Galanthus Golden Tears’ price for one bulb £1850.00! Of course you do not have to spend that much to enjoy the drifts on display at National Garden Scheme gardens http://www.ngs.org.uk where cheaper varieties will be on offer.
A spring view of ‘Dragons’ opening for the National Garden Scheme on Wednesday 14 February (11am to 3pm). Admission for adults £5, children free. Refreshments available.
Visits also by arrangement 7 February to 15 October for groups of 10 +.
Snowdrop gardens full of winter joy opening in Essex this February
Photo Val Corbett
In 2023, the National Garden Scheme set a new record by donating over £3,400,000 to the charity’s beneficiaries which include Marie Curie, Macmillan Cancer Support, Hospice UK, Carers Trust, The Queen’s Nursing Institute and Parkinson’s UK. Essex garden owners and garden visitors played no small part in this by raising just under £170,000, also a record amount.
Garden visiting continues to be an enjoyable and inexpensive day out for the family, with children usually going free. In 2024, 86 glorious gardens will open to visitors with 20 of them new. The garden visiting season starts with great excitement, in February, with five special snowdrop openings:
The first to open is Dragons in Boyton Cross, Chelmsford, CM1 4LS. This is eagerly anticipated every year for its displays of snowdrops, hellebores and other exquisite winter plants which really shine out at this time of year. It is also popular for the sales of some of the more unusual snowdrop varieties.
Opening Wednesday 14 February (11am to 3pm). Admission for adults £5, children free. Refreshments available. Visits also by arrangement 7 February to 15 October for groups of 10 +.
Fans of the gardens at Ulting Wick, Crouchmans Farm Road, Ulting, Maldon, CM9 6QX will be interested to visit in February and March – a first for Philippa Burrough who normally opens her gardens later in the year for tulips and later summer flowers. Philippa started developing areas of snowdrops during the lockdown and now has them in beds near the house as well as drifts in the woodland area. These are joined by early flowering narcissus and increasingly by larger swathes of daffodils which cover the banks around the lake.
Pre-booking is essential for the openings on Friday 16 Feb and Wednesday 27 March (11.30am to 2pm). Admission £15, please visit http://www.ngs.org.uk for information and booking.
Homemade soup and rolls will be offered as well as homemade cakes. Visits also by arrangement 12 Feb to 1 Oct for groups of 15 to 50.
The snowdrop opening at Horkesley Hall Vinesse Road, Little Horkesley, Colchester, CO6 4DB is on Saturday 17 February. New this year is a talk by snowdrop specialist, Chris Wiley of Sow Successful, starting at 11.30am (visitors please bring their own mugs for coffee!) and the gardens will open between 1.00 and 4.30pm. Visitors can walk around the eight acres of magical parkland at their leisure, taking in the developing snowdrop collection, views across the lake and important collection of mature trees. Admission for adults £6, children free.
Ticket for snowdrop talk £5. Light refreshments of soups, home-made cakes, sausage rolls and hot drinks will be served in St Peter and St Paul’s Church and snowdrops will be available to purchase. Visits also by arrangement for groups of 10 to 20.
Opening on two consecutive Sundays, 18 and 25 February, the garden at Grove Lodge 3 Chater’s Hill, Saffron Walden, CB10 2AB manages to create a secluded early spring woodland in the centre of this market town. The spread of snowdrops and winter aconites has been steadily increasing over the last few years and is a joy to see. Open between 2 and 5pm with admission for adults £6, children free. Homemade teas served in the conservatory. Group visits also by arrangement from 2 January to 20 December.
Brookfield, Church Road, Boreham, CM3 3EB . Visitors who are used to seeing the three and a half acres of garden and meadow covered in summer perennials, roses and wild flowers will find a much quieter but no less impressive covering of snowdrops, aconites and crocus on Sunday 25 February, (11am to 4pm). Admission for adults £5, children free. Homemade tea and cake will be served in the conservatory with views across the garden.
Four of the gardens mentioned above also offer private group visits, by arrangement with the garden owners. Visit the National Garden Scheme website ngs.org.uk for more details. Checking the website for any last-minute changes is also recommended before setting out.
The National Garden Scheme gives visitors unique, affordable access to over 3,500 exceptional private gardens and raises impressive amounts of money for nursing and health charities through admissions, teas and cake.
Thanks to the generosity of garden owners, volunteers and visitors we have donated over £70million to nursing and health charities. Founded in 1927 to support district nurses, we are now the most significant charitable funder of nursing in the UK and our beneficiaries include Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and The Queen’s Nursing Institute.
The National Garden Scheme doesn’t just open beautiful gardens for charity – we are passionate about the physical and mental health benefits of gardens too. We fund projects which promote gardens and gardening as therapy, and in 2017, we launched our annual Gardens and Health Week to raise awareness of the topic.
To find your perfect garden, visit ngs.org.uk, download the National Garden Scheme app or purchase the National Garden Scheme’s Garden Visitor’s Handbook, which is published annually and available viahttp://www.ngs.org.uk/shopand at all good book retailers.
Whilst the Essex group is great for meeting friends at a local level the specialist groups offer an insight into the passion of members countrywide. Either online or at an annual get together.
Shade and Woodland does not provide a great burst of colour but it is amazing what you can do with leaves of different sizes, texture and colour. Ferns of course are a must, and polystichum setiferum Bevis is a particularly fine form. Cylamen, coum and hederifolium provide an immense variety of leaf patterns even when not in flower. Brunnera Jack Frost lights up the darkest corner. Arum italicum, if you dare introduce these (they are prolific seeders) also provide many different leaf forms. As for snowdrops that is entirely a different obsession.
From left to Right : Arum Italicum Pictum, Cyclamen Coum, Cyclamen Hederifolium, Garrya Eliptica, Galanthus Reginae Olgae, Polystichum Bevis, Ribes Laurifolium.
More information is on the HPS national website www.hardy-plant.org.uk or contact the HPS Shade and Woodland Plants Group Secretary, Diana Garner, at shade@hardy-plant.org.uk or the HPS Administrator, e-mail admin@hardy-plant.org.uk ,or in writing to 3 Basepoint Business Centre, Crab Apple Way, Evesham WR11 1GP
Our next meeting is this Sunday 14th January at Wickham Bishops Village Hall. The meeting starts at 2.00pm. Also if you haven’t paid yet please bring your subs.
Our speaker this month is Sue Jackman – ’Madagascar, its Endemics & Exotics’
Sue is a keen plantswoman and past chairman of Essex HPS. She also opened her garden for the National Garden Scheme for 5 years. We visited Sue’s garden in 2023 for our ‘Meet the Gardener’ visit.
Sue trained originally as a Radiographer X-raying humans, and then animals at Bristol Veterinary School. Years later she trained in Horticulture and taught at Writtle College. Her interest in wildflowers, and then gardens started very early. She has been fortunate to be able to join groups flower hunting in many countries.
In the depths of winter, when the days are dark and short, and the ground is always wet, it is easy to turn our backs on our gardens. But there is always something to please those who look, whether it is seed heads of grasses swaying in the breeze, berries that have survived the birds, or rain drops on spiders’ web.
Hydrangea paniculata ”Kyushu”, in front of Calamagrostis brachytricha
And, of course, frost. Frost is a gift, an essential part of the life cycle of an Essex garden. It reduces the numbers of overwintering pests, restoring balance to the wildlife we share our gardens with. It is necessary for the germination of the seeds of certain species. And it creates unfamiliar new pictures with our familiar plants.
Sambucus nigra “Black Lace” in last December’s frost
In summer some gardeners are tempted by tender tropicals. They grow cannas among their dahlias, gingers with their bananas, and Ricinus beside the euphorbias, and they fancy they are in a jungle. And then autumn comes and they have to dig them all up and store them away from frost. It’s a lot of work, however rewarding.
But we in the Hardy Plant Society have no fear of frosts.
Most British gardens rely on hardy plants, plants that have evolved to survive, thrive even, in the sub-zero temperatures of winter. You can garden successfully only using hardy plants, but it is hard to imagine a successful garden without them. We know their secrets, and delight in their reappearance. As I write the buds of the hellebores are swelling, the noses of the snowdrops are poking up through wet autumn leaves, and Iris unguicularis has been flowering for weeks.
The Hellebores are coming, 21/12/23
The first of my snowdrops
Iris unguicularis has had a succession of flowers since November
So far this has been a mild winter, though possibly wetter than last year and certainly darker, all of which has an effect on our plants, even our hardy perennials, our shrubs and our trees. My winter flowering shrubs are later than last year, and the late flowering plants did not last into December, as they did last year when I had four times as many plants in flower on December 1st. We are learning all the time. In early December 2022 we had a deep frost, and we all lost plants, only some of which have revived. A possible reason for the exceptional devastation may have been the frost coming soon after a thorough soaking.
Being a member of the Hardy Plant Society in Essex gives you an invaluable source of experience, knowledge and wisdom in the care of plants in our soils and our unique climate. I hope that, like me, you are looking forward to a lively programme of meetings, talks and garden visits in 2024. My thanks to all members, and especially our Committee and volunteers, for making this a wonderful, warm and friendly organisation. Have a very happy Christmas and I wish you great gardening in the new year.
Essex HPS 