The HPS in April 2025: News and Events

Hello Hardy Planters,

At last, some sunshine! Lots going on across the HPS this month so do click to watch the video below as I round up some of the forthcoming events (including Magic of Plants this Saturday – will I see you there?) and announce the first details of our Annual Lecture Day in September.

We’re also on the lookout for an archivist (more details on that below, too) and have you seen the results in Seedlings of our recent member survey into your gardening loves and hates?

Make sure you scroll down below the video for more news and useful information on making the most of your HPS membership. 

Enjoy the Spring weather and see you in May!

Steve Bustin, Chair HPS

If you prefer to read Steve’s message above, the transcript can be downloaded here.

Links within the video:

• Seedlings 
• Survey Results
• Next journal coming up
• Second Member email list page
• 2025 AGM 
• Pulmonaria AGM
• Magic of Plants

The Zoom call on March 25th went well. Both votes were approved, which enables the society to move forwards and become a new legal form, ready for the future.

The 2025 Hardy Plant Society Annual General Meeting and Lecture Day is to be hosted this year by the Derbyshire Group and will take place on September 13th at the Eastwood Hall conference centre. 

There will be talks including:

• Val Bourne ‘Colour in the Garden, Practical Garden Recipes That Work from Season to Season’
• Troy Scott Smith ‘Gardening Through the Seasons’
• Steve Bustin ‘Trowel and Error: Creating a city garden, one mistake at a time’

There will also be plant stalls from:

• Potterton’s Nursery (www.pottertons.co.uk)
• Morton Nursery (www.morton-nurseries.co.uk)
• Bridge Farm Plants (Facebook page)
• The Derbyshire HPS Group

And also tables for our special interest groups

• Galanthus
• Peony
• Pulmonaria
• Shade and Woodland
• Variegated
• Conservation Scheme

Click the button below for more details of the event, speakers & locations. Scroll down for links to the booking forms and get your ticket now!

HPS Awards Scheme

A new survey reveals the plants Britain’s keen gardeners love to grow, the plants they struggle to grow – and the plants they regret ever allowing past the garden gate and into their gardens. Chair of The Hardy Plant Society, Steve Bustin, says “the survey results revealed some deep loves – and hates – in the garden.”

The survey was carried out among members of The Hardy Plant Society, who are usually experienced and often expert gardeners – so they know their plants and know their gardening – but as this survey reveals, even the most experienced gardeners struggle occasionally!

The Survey results are in three sections:

• Desert Island Plant – if you could only choose one plant
• Garden Nemesis – something which is a struggle to keep alive
• Most Regretted Plant – hindsight is a wonderful thing

The full results and plant photos are on the website, click here:

Ann Franks, Trustee

Historically the society has only recorded the email address of the ‘First’ person who takes out a Joint membership.  With the recent EGM vote, we realised that we should be enabling the ‘second’ member to receive communications regarding the society.  We have provided a way for the ‘second’ member to add themselves to the Member email list. Click the button below, login to the website, and add yourself to the list.

The 2025 AGM & Pulmonaria Day will be held on Saturday 12th April at Escrick Village Hall near York starting at 9am. 

The meeting will include a talk by Don Witton on ‘Euphorbias and other spring-flowering plants. Don holds a National Collection of Euphorbias and has written the HPS booklet on this fascinating genus. There will be an afternoon visit to nearby Stillingfleet Lodge Garden and Nursery.

To book please contact Barry Street: barryclive.street@gmail.com

West Yorkshire Group Event

On April the 5th the West Yorkshire Group are running their Magic of Plants event with speakers including:

• Saul Walker – Woodland Gardening – the Art of Growing in Shade. Saul is head gardener at Stonelands House, Devon. He has been on the show management teams for both RHS Hampton Court Palace and RHS Chelsea, is a Trustee of both the HPS and the Chartered Institute of Horticulture, and a member of the RHS Tender Plant Committee. He also co-hosts the Talking Heads Podcast with Lucy Chamberlain.
   
• Charlotte Harris –From RHS Chelsea to the City of Steel: creating an award winning adaptive garden for Horatio’s Garden– Chelsea’s Best Show Garden 2023
   
• Twigs Way –”A History of Women in the Garden.”
   
• Jack Willgoss – “Gardening for the Future” a look at how Wildegoose Nursery has explored new methods of gardening and plants grown, so we can continue gardening in a changing climate

For full details of the venue and a booking link, click the button below.

Would you like to get more involved with the HPS and bring your time and talents to bear on the future of the Society? We currently have a number of roles open and are looking for people who might like to come onboard and join our large team of much-valued volunteers.

It’s a great way to meet new Hardy Planters, expand your own knowledge and experience and help the Society to thrive. In the last few months we’ve welcomed a new Social Media Postholder, Marina Lindl, a new Publications Postholder, Carolyn White and new Publicity & PR postholder Gilly Jenks. 

We are currently looking for people to take on the following voluntary roles:

Journal Editor

We are re-advertising this role as Souren Ala, our current editor, has indicated that he’d like to mentor his replacement in the production of the Autumn 2025 issue. This role needs some journalistic/editorial experience and good horticultural knowledge to commission the right writers to write on the right topics to maintain the journal’s excellent reputation for in-depth botany and horticulture features.

Archivist

With our 70^th anniversary on the horizon, the Hardy Plant Society has a lot of history – and has inevitably accrued a lot of materials over those years, from copies of our publications to memorabilia of events, member records and other ephemera. 

We’re looking for someone to take an overview of this archive and advise us on what we should be keeping, what we could digitise to save and what can be moved on towards the recycling bin. Should we be donating certain items to a larger archive or holding on to them ourselves? 

This has become particularly pertinent as we’ll be closing our office in Evesham in the coming months as our fantastic office manager, Clare, relocates and moves to working from home. We need to decide what to keep and put in storage (which has a monetary cost so we can’t keep everything) and what needs to go elsewhere.

If you think you could help us to preserve HPS history and records that future researchers, gardeners and members could find useful (and jettison the rest), please drop our Chair a mail on chair@hardy-plant.org.uk.

If you would like more details on any of these roles or to have a chat about what might be involved, please contact our Chair, Steve Bustin, on chair@hardy-plant.org.uk. We are also very happy to look at people sharing roles as a ‘job share’ to help spread the workload, if you’d be interested in taking on the role with a friend. 

For more information about either of these roles, please contact our Chair, Steve Bustin, on chair@hardy-plant.org.uk for an informal chat about what’s involved.

If you haven’t already please take a look at a new articles from our  contributors:

• Sheila May: On a Chalk Hillside for March 2025 with On a Chalk Hillside for March 2025 with Galanthus galore.

We always want to hear from anyone who can write about plants and gardening. If you have something you’d like to see published, please get in touch.

Below is a listing of Local & Special Interest Group Events around the Country. Most are open to guests for a fee. For more details click the link below and check with the organisers of the specific event for more details including the venue location.

• Wed 2nd Apr at 19:30 South Pennine group: My Favourite Alpines – Sue & Neil Huntley
• Thu 3rd Apr at 19:30 East Yorkshire group: Edwardian Gardens and Designer Harold Peto – Camilla Anderson
• Sat 5th Apr at 9:00 West Yorkshire group: The Magic of Plants Conference
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:00 Hertfordshire group: Bugs and Garden Plagues – Geoff Hodge
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:00 Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire group: Special Plants for a Small Garden- Peter Williams
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:00 Worcestershire group: Inspiring Plants for April – Aaron Pleciak
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:00 Northamptonshire group: Plantaholics Paradise – Helen Picton
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:30 Devon group: The Secret Lives of Garden Bees – Jean Vernon
• Sat 5th Apr at 14:30 Shropshire group: The World of Climbing Plants – Hilary Hutson
• Sun 6th Apr at 14:30 Devon group: Bee Safari at Little Ash
• Mon 7th Apr at 19:30 Cheshire and Friends group: Super Salvias – Barry Grain
• Tue 8th Apr at 19:30 Clwyd group: Rare, Unusual & Pictoral Plants – Kevin Pratt
• Tue 8th Apr at 19:30 Rutland group: Hellebores – Samantha Hope
• Tue 8th Apr at 19:45 Berkshire group: Propagation – Marina Christopher
• Fri 11th Apr at 19:00 West Yorkshire group: Beyond the Garden Gate – Elizabeth & David Smith
• Fri 11th Apr at 19:30 Nottingham group: Plant Hunting in Nepal – Simon Croson
• Fri 11th Apr at 19:30 Staffordshire group: A Year at Spring Cottage – Val Bourne (HPS Vice-President)
• Sat 12th Apr at 9:00 Pulmonaria group: Pulmonaria Group Meeting and AGM
• Sat 12th Apr at 13:00 Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire group: Plants for Difficult Places – Janette Merilion
• Sat 12th Apr at 14:00 Herefordshire and Mid Wales group: Scented Narcissi and other Bulbs – Gail Plant
• Sat 12th Apr at 14:00 Derbyshire group: Flora and Wildlife of the High Artic – David Charlton
• Sat 12th Apr at 14:30 Monmouthshire group: The Humble Umbel – Derry Watkins
• Sat 12th Apr at 14:30 West Midlands group: Colour and Texture in the Garden – Duncan Coombs
• Sun 13th Apr at 14:00 Essex group: In the Garden with William Morris – Fiona Rose
• Mon 14th Apr at 19:30 North West group: Small Flowered Clematis – Richard Hodson
• Mon 14th Apr at 19:30 Cumbria group: Pictorial Meadows – Owen Hayman
• Sat 19th Apr at 14:30 Fenland group: RHS Trials – Steve Edney
• Sun 20th Apr at 10:00 Fenland group: Plant Fair with visiting nurseries & Book Signing by Adam Frost
• Thu 24th Apr at 9:00 Hertfordshire group: Pashley Manor Tulip Festival/Great Dixter Coach Trip
• Fri 25th Apr at 14:00 Salisbury Plain Mini-Group group: Dr. Julian Sutton – The History of Garden Plants in 12 shrubs
• Sat 26th Apr at 10:00 Somerset group: Plant Sale
• Sat 26th Apr at 13:45 Western Counties group: Organic Gardening. Happy Plants, Happy Minds – Nicola Hope
• Sat 26th Apr at 14:00 Wiltshire and Avon group: A World under our Feet – Leila Froud
• Sat 26th Apr at 14:00 Lincolnshire group: Alun Whitehead : Aulden Farm from Conception to Chaos
• Sat 26th Apr at 14:30 Monmouthshire group: Practical Workshop with Kelly Weare
• Sun 27th Apr at 14:30 Kent group: The Biodiversity Audit at Great Dixter – Fergus Garrett.
• Mon 28th Apr at 19:15 North East group: A Plantaholic’s Paradise – Helen Picton

Help us spread the benefits of plants and gardening. Our members tell us they feel relaxation, happiness, satisfaction, calmness and love from plants and gardening. We want to see these benefits reach everyone, and at the same time improve our environment.

Since 1957 we’ve been promoting plants and helping our members adapt to changes in our environment. Entirely member funded, we run a network of local groups around the country and are always looking to start more.

All memberships provide many benefits including

• The option to join any of our local or special interests groups
• Two copies of The Hardy Plant (in full colour, by post)
• Three copies of The Newsletter (in full colour, by post)
• Immediate access to the members area of our website with access to all our news and articles
• Free plant advice through our advisory service
• Participation in the Conservation scheme
• Participation in the Seed Distribution Scheme
• The option to subscribe to Cornucopia for an additional fee

Thank you for reading!