Our best bits and bobs on Yorkshire Day

This week members of Friday Forum shared anecdotes of their most useful gardening aids.

Margaret D’s kneeler and gardening box containing secateurs, plastic specs to protect the eyes, string, wire, gloves, trowel, dibber and small claw rake.

 Carl demonstrated the value of a 5-gallon drum – to sit on!

A wooden yardstick is useful – and can also be used as an aid for getting up from the drum!

  

Other 'inventions' by Carl include a rake has been marked off to be used as a measuring device,a broken fork can be transformed into a dibber, a two-pronged fork for extracting dandelions, or even a one pronged fork. 

Bowles actually thought up the two-pronged fork before Carl and you can read about him here:  http://eabowlessociety.org.uk/history.htm

 Thelma brought her Spudder.  This is a tool she had known from her childhood and, when she saw one for sale at a country fair, bought one of her own.  Very useful for deep rooted weeds and an interesting name if you look up the origins of the word.

 

 Peter has invented a piece of equipment for washing alpine gravel or for sieving soil

Linda extolled the virtues of the plastic trug, a multi-purpose aid for the garden or indeed anywhere.  She has them in all sizes and colours.

 Janella’s high performing pruner is light to lift and can even reach into the neighbour’s garden.

 Judith's weeder

Display Table

Ann’s attractive blue and orange bouquet of flowers from her garden included clematis Princess Diana, which she saved from slug damage by using copper tape from the pound shop around bottomless, plastic plant pots, tetrifolia, crocosmia Fire King and Lucifer,which she suggests that the bulbs should be planted deeply to prevent them from flopping over.  Other flowers were  allium senescens which grows into a large clump, Monarda, stokesia laevis, Agapanthus windlebrooke, willow gentian, rosa purpura, helenium, Mina lobata/Ipomoea, eryngium and erysimum to name just a few.

 In Gill’s vase were pieces from shrubs of Veronicastrum, hydrangea, false bamboo which has flowered and the honey scented Itea.  Also featuring double delphinium, white linaria, alstroemeria, the shorter verbena rigida, potentilla monarch’s velvet and persicaria red dragon

 

Peter’s fragrant Cyclamen purpurascens and Judith’s lemon and lime theme to brighten a corner in any garden mainly comprised Leycesteria formosa 'Golden Lanterns’, the yellow leaved Catalpa, Hypericum 'Golden Beacon', euphorbia stricta, salvia pineapple sage, hosta fire island and tanacetum. There is also Agastache in pot

Margaret D’s wildflowers from the Marmalade mix from Pictorial Meadows were sown in three pots and took just two months from seed to bloom.

 

Notice Board

Dates for your diary:  On 13^th August is the NGS open day for Friday Forum member Kate at 2 Newlay Grove, Horsforth LS18 4LH between 1.00 and 5.00 pm.

Friday Forum agreed to support our local nurseries and we are compiling a list of these for our members.  Please let us know if you have a local nursery to recommend.

Paxton is holding a Plant Sale and Coffee Morning on Saturday 23 August between 10am and 12.00 noon.  

Next meeting:  
15th August:   A visit to Pat Clarke’s award-winning garden which will be followed by a tour of the Centenary garden and rockery at Valley Gardens, for those who are interested.   Address: The Mews Cottage, Brunswick Drive, Harrogate HG1 2PZ.
Directions:  A61 into Harrogate past Betty’s and Cenotaph, down Parliament Street  Through the lights at the bottom, up Ripon Road for a little way, then turn left on to Swan Road past Old Swan Hotel, across onto York Road, over cross roads  and then fork left onto Brunswick Drive.  Look out for Mews Cottage on the left.   If you have a parking disc please bring it with you but some will be available
Time: 1.30pm - £3.50 including refreshments 

Friends of Paxton meet regularly on the first Monday of the month from Midday.  An hour or two or your time to help maintain the premises are always welcome.  If another date is more suitable for you, please let us know.
  
Friday Forum meetings are 1.30pm on 1st and 3rd Fridays of each month at Paxton Hall, Paxton Horticultural Society, 186 Kirkstall Lane, Leeds LS5 2AB.   Meetings may be hands-on sessions, guest speakers or garden visits. Regular features are the Display Table where members can bring their plants for discussion and advice and the Sales Table where members sell their plants, cuttings and produce to help the club funds.  For further information log on to https://sites.google.com/site/paxtonhorticulturalsocietycouk/Home