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The Hardy Plant Society News
Gift Cards
If you are looking for a gift for your green fingered friends and relatives, why not send an HPS gift card they are available from our website. Each card is valid for 12 months and can be used as full or part payment against anything within the HPS Shop, apart from Seeds and the AGM. You can choose from six card designs and any value from ยฃ10 to ยฃ100.
Ann Franks (Trustee & Publicity Postholder)
An Updated HPS Geraniums Book is Available Now
Margaret Stone has just updated HPS Geraniums book/ booklet (3rd Edition); the last was published in May 2015. The new book includes cultivars introduced during the last ten years and has a new set of illustrations. It provides a directory of Geraniums in cultivation The book covers Hardy Geraniums for different sites, their propagation and cultivation. The photos are truly stunning and many of the images in the book were provided by Hardy Geranium Group members including the late Trevor Hards and describes all those readily available including many rare and unusual varieties. ยฃ5.50 for members and ยฃ10 for non-members, join now to get the discount?
Margaret Stone is a Plant Heritage National Collection Holder for Geranium sanguineum, macrorrhizum and x cantabrigiense. Margaret is also a former Chair of the Hardy Geranium Group.
HPS Awards Scheme
Nominations are now open for the first HPS Annual Awards to be held at the Annual Lecture Day in September 2025. You have until 1st March 2025 to send in your nominations for the individual or team who you think has made an outstanding contribution towards the Society’s work in 2023 and/or 2024. Details of the Awards and the online nomination form can all be found at www.hardy-plant.org.uk/awards. Don’t hold back – we would love to hear from you.
James Lennox, Trustee
Garden Survey
The HPS Garden Survey is now open. We’re interested to hear about those plants you love, those you wouldn’t give garden room to and those you’d love to have โ but have never been able to grow. We are also interested in hearing about your plant experiences in our changing climate and on using peat-free compost. We will be using your thoughts and opinions to help gardeners across the UK make better decisions when picking plants to grow in their gardens.
Ann Franks, Trustee and Publicity Postholder
Seed Distribution Scheme Now Open
The Seed Distribution is the highlight of the year for some of our members. For a small fee members can receive their choice of up to 20 packets of seeds. Seed Donors get an extra choices, and everyone can opt for 15 extra choices as a reward.
All orders can include some bonus packets as either โun-named seed mix’ or pot-luck substitutes, as the allocation of seed and the timing of orders might mean you miss out on your first choices.
The fee is far cheaper than buying the same seeds at retail prices and will give you a great start to next years garden. All members should have received the printed seed catalogue, or you can visit the website to download a PDF copy, or an Excel list, or browse the list online with search buttons to Google and the RHS.
The sooner your order is received, the better your chance of getting your preferred seeds. You have until the 6th of January at 9am to get your order in (by post or online)
Diane Puncheon, Postholder (Seed Distribution Scheme)
Photo Competition
Grab your cameras and start snapping away! The deadline for entries for this year’s Photo Competition is Monday 9th December, only a few days left to enter. More details of how to enter, and the prizes waiting to be won can be found here.
Previous winners can be seen in their full glory on our photography page.
Alan Lennox, Postholder (Photography Competition)
Converting the Society to a CIO
Watch your inboxes: important emails coming your way imminently! While we try to avoid overloading your inboxes with emails, please do keep an eye out for some important announcements coming by email in the next few weeks. The first will be arriving in the next couple of days and will be important news on the next steps in changing the charitable status of the Hardy Plant Society to a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO).
This is an important step for a number of legal and practical reasons. All will be explained in the email, including how to take part in the consultation period and how to participate when we hold an online Extraordinary General Meeting early in 2025 to vote on the changes.
HPS Ambassador Celebrates Major Award
We’d like to extend our heartiest congratulations to HPS Ambassador Matt Biggs who was presented with the โOutstanding Contribution’ Award at the Garden Media Guild awards last week.
The Garden Media Guild (GMG) brings together garden writers and broadcasters, podcasters and bloggers including many well-known gardening names (including our President Roy Lancaster and Vice-President Val Bourne plus all our Ambassadors). The prize is awarded to โan individual who has made an outstanding contribution over a number of years to our profession. This award is in the gift of the GMG Committee.’
As you may have read in the new issue of Seedlings, Matt has been treated for cancer over the last four years at the Mt Vernon Cancer Centre in Middlesex and while a patient there instigated the creation of a new garden, with the plants supplied and planted by HPS members. We would like to wish Matt all the best for his continued recovery and congratulate HPS members for their generosity and dedication in creating a new garden that will give pleasure and solace to patients and visitors alike over the coming years.
Vacancies
Can you help?
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.
We are currently looking for people to take on the following roles:
1. Descriptive Data Researcher – Seed Scheme
Working with and reporting to the Seed List Manager (Diane Puncheon) with responsibilities for each seed, new to the HPS list.
- What sort of plant it is e.g. hardy perennial etc?
- A brief description of it and its growing conditions
- When and how to sow
- Its hardiness rating
- Family name
- Origin e.g. country/region or garden if a cultivar
- The RHS number and whether the plant name is accepted or it may be unresolved or a trade name etc.
- Whether the seed or plant is poisonous
Each season there can be around 100 of these new seeds and the research will need to take place over the period September to the first week in November. For more information or an informal chat contact Diane Puncheon Seed Distribution Coordinator or email seed@hardy-plant.org.uk
2. Social Media Postholder
This role involves overseeing much of the HPS social media activity (with support from our central team); advising the Board on what is (and isn’t) doing well on our social media accounts; generating relevant content and engaging with our followers and commenting on other people’s posts. Some experience on Facebook, Instagram etc would be very useful but training can also be given.
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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
New on the website
If you haven’t already please take a look at a new articles:
- Shelia May, On a Chalk Hillside, November 2024
- Kevin Line, Propagation of Acanthus Spinosus
Our Horticultural Advice Team handle questions of all sorts, we’ve published many of their previous questions and answers on their page.
Bursary Reports
We also have new Bursary reports which make interesting reading from recipients of the Kenneth Black Bursary Scheme, all Bursary Reports are available to read here: https://hardy-plant.org.uk/bursary-scheme-reports/
New this month:
- Hannah Houlding: Beneath the Surface, part of the Beth Chatto Symposium
- Scot Galloway: Bergenia Cultivar Conservation, A Journey Across Europe
Bergenia Conservation
Beneath the Surface
Events at Local and Special Interest Groups
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.
- Mon 2nd Dec at 19:15 North East group: Trees for Small Gardens โ John Grimshaw
- Mon 2nd Dec at 19:30 Cheshire and Friends group: Evergreens for Small Places โ Anthony Norman
- Wed 4th Dec at 19:30 South Pennine group: The Life and Times of a Gardening Editor โ Geoff Hodge
- Thu 5th Dec at 19:30 East Yorkshire group: Home Grown
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:00 Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire group: 50 Shades of Green โ Razvan Chisu
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:00 Northamptonshire group: Winter in Bloom โ Samantha Hopes
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:00 Worcestershire group: Wildside โ The Story Of A Garden by Wildside Film
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:00 Hertfordshire group: โI’ve got a new Plant, What do I do now?โ โ Graham Spencer (Plants for Europe)
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:30 Shropshire group: The Invaders โ John Scrace
- Sat 7th Dec at 14:30 Devon group: The Secret World of the Undergrowth โ John Walters
- Sun 8th Dec at 14:00 Essex group: โClimbers and Wall Shrubs’ โ Tom Cole
- Mon 9th Dec at 19:30 North West group: AGM and Christmas Social
- Tue 10th Dec at 19:30 Rutland group: A New Way to Garden โ Doug Stewart
- Tue 10th Dec at 19:45 Berkshire group: Get together for Christmas lunch at a local Garden Centre
- Wed 11th Dec at 12:00 Wiltshire and Avon group: Christina Stapley: Christmas Herbs
- Fri 13th Dec at 19:00 West Yorkshire group: Christmas Social
- Fri 13th Dec at 19:30 Nottingham group: Plants for Pagans at Midwinter โ Twigs Way
- Fri 13th Dec at 19:30 Staffordshire group: The Dark Months. Not Just Snowdrops โ Diane Clement
- Sat 14th Dec at 14:00 Norfolk and Suffolk group: Gertrude Jeckyll โ Andrew Sankey
- Sat 14th Dec at 14:00 West Midlands group: Jill and Alun Whitehead โ Gardens of Wales
- Sat 14th Dec at 14:00 Derbyshire group: Growing in Sand โ Tom Nicholls
- Sun 15th Dec at 14:00 South Wales group: No Dig Vegetables & Flowers โ Cherry Taylor
- Sat 4th Jan at 14:00 Hertfordshire group: Why Wait for Spring โ Winter in the Garden โ Helen Picton
- Sat 4th Jan at 14:30 Devon group: Cyclamen โ Jo Hynes
Join the Hardy Plant Society
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!
