Location: Paul Cumbleton was head of the Alpine Department at RHS Wisley Garden for 11 years. He has grown alpines for over 30 years and also has a particular interest in Pleione and the winter-growing South African bulbs. The winter rainfall area of South Africa has some outstanding, wonderful, and sometimes weird but beautiful plants. In this talk Paul will …

Location: Monkton Elm Village Hall Mickey Little trained at Cannington, was a nurseryman at Kelways and Head Gardener at Castle Drogo, Hestercombe and Achamore before joining Avon Bulbs as a propagator. His knowledge of snowdrops is extensive and he has been involved in propagating new cultivars of Galanthus over the years. For those of us who are hooked on these …

Location: Monkton Elm Village Hall Saul has an extraordinary number of strings to his bow, including membership of the RHS Tender Plant Committee, being a Trustee of The Hardy Plant Society, and his job as Head Gardener at Stonelands House in Devon. He is an expert on exotic and tender plants, and has enormous enthusiasm for the subject. In this …

Location: Experienced speaker Caradoc Doy is an authority on the history of the Veitch Nurseries, which were the first commercial nurseries in Britain to sponsor their own plant collectors. Their plant hunters introduced 232 orchids, nearly 500 greenhouse plants, 118 exotic ferns, about 50 conifers, 153 deciduous trees, 72 evergreen and climbing shrubs, and 122 herbaceous and 37 bulbous plants …

Location: Chris Trimmer works in conservation propagating, grafting, nursery design and management at the NT Plant Conservation Centre in Devon. His job includes saving plants which are endangered in a particular area (often because of disease), propagating clean stock and replanting the progeny to form a healthy colony. Sometimes these plants can be the only food-source for rare insects, so …

Saturday 18th November AGM starts at 10.30am. Lecture starts at 11.15am Timothy Walker’s talks are always entertaining, combining deep horticultural knowledge with a droll style of delivery.  He was the Horti Praefectus (Director) of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum, and has won four gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show. This lecture focuses on all-year-round interest …

Saturday 14th October Razvan’s addiction to plants began as a child in his native Transylvania, where he was inspired by fields covered in wildflowers. His passion remains plant-hunting, particularly in Greece and Spain. His wonderful photographs of these trips show vast areas of wildflowers – swathes of silene, crocus, species tulips, etc. – growing naturally and undisturbed. As well as …

Saturday 16th September  50/50 Plant Sale starts at 10.00am. Lecture at 11.00am Katherine Crouch is a garden designer and former BBC Gardener of the Year. She says that after 40 years of gardening, she is now becoming arthritic and lazy (ring any bells?).  In this talk she will introduce shortcuts which ensure gardeners don’t have to stop gardening just because …