VV june july 2022

Continued
...Spencer who has found us some fabulous
private gardens to visit, many of which have
been featured on TV in Gardeners’ World.
meeting before lockdown we had David
Domoney of TV’s“ Love your garden” fame. He
also appears on several other TV programmes.
We went to Paris, to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the club, going to Monet’s
garden at Giverney, as well as several others
and we had a boat trip down the Seine.
We had a holiday in Scotland by air. We were
supposed to fly from Southampton direct to
Inverness but ended up going via Belfast and
back via Manchester! Coming home we spotted
Joanna Lumley sweeping through the airport
with her entourage!
We visited wonderful gardens and castles in
Scotland including Glamis Castle, belonging to
the Queen Mother, where we could see Orkney
just across the water. You can’t get much
further north on the mainland!
We have had some well known speakers. Tom
Hart-Dyke, who was kidnapped and held
captive for nearly a year on a plant hunting trip
to Central America, spoke at a meeting run
jointly, with New Milton and Lymington
Gardeners’ Clubs. We shared his fee which was
£1500! Whilst he was held captive he planned
his “ World Garden” in Kent, his talk needless to
say was fascinating.
We ran another joint talk with Chris Beardshaw
as the speaker. He was involved in creating a
garden for Chelsea using the people who work
at Furzey Gardens, which was one of our
charities for that year. The talk was held in
Milford Parish Church. It was packed out and he
certainly gave value for money. He was
supposed to talk for a hour to an hour and a
half but was still going at 2 hours! People were
getting uncomfortable on the hard pews and in
the end Jenny had to politely stop him as we
had also overrun our allotted time!
He came back from Chelsea with a gold medal
and the garden was installed on the Furzey
Gardens site.
I still remember his best bit of advice. “If you
are not sure whether to keep a plant or get rid
of it, imagine you have a paradise garden and
the plant will be with you for eternity. If you
don’t want it forever, dig it up.” Sound advice
for decision making!
David was actually thanks to Jenny Spencer
who “ won” him in a draw at Chelsea flower
show! The prize was to have her garden
redesigned by him. Alas! Too late! Jenny, being
a garden designer herself had just completed a
new garden as she had recently moved so she
negotiated him coming to give a talk to the Club
instead. We could never have afforded him
otherwise!
The irony was that Jenny had a holiday on the
other side of the world booked for the only
date he could come so she never got to see
him. It was a hugely informative talk where he
shared loads of tips and amusing anecdotes
about people he had worked with on TV.
Looking back over the past 25 years we have
come a long way since that first Gardeners’
question time and have gone from strength to
strength. So I have a big thank you to say to
Jenny and Jan for their brilliant idea.
What does the future hold for the club? In
August we will be holding a celebratory tea
party for our 25 years, at the Community
Centre. We have asked the Parish Council if we
can plant an oak tree in the Community
Meadow to mark our anniversary and the
Queen’s Jubilee and they have agreed. Jenny is
planning a holiday for 2023 which will include a
visit to “ Bridgewater” the latest RHS garden
near Manchester. We are planning a great
programme of speakers as always. It’s looking
good BUT our success is due entirely to a hard
working committee, all of whom are getting
older! Like many local organisations we need
some new, younger people to step up and take
the baton if we are to continue successfully into
We have had Helen Yemm who writes a column
in the Saturday Telegraph and at almost the last the future.
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