The talks outlined below will be held at Vision Hall, Christ Church, Watling Street, Radlett WD7 7JJ, starting at 8pm. Entry is £2 and includes tea or coffee and biscuits.


Wednesday, 22nd March 2023
Clippings
By Darren Lerigo
This fascinating talk is about pruning, topiary, hedges, roses, fruit trees, wisteria and clematis - all the usual culprits in a garden. Darren will look at tools needed, techniques, best plants to use including alternatives to boxwood, how to deal with the boxwood caterpillar and how to compose a topiary.

Darren is a gardener who specialises in topiary and pruning. He spends the year travelling all over the UK making hedges and shrubs into fun shapes with his sharp, shiny shears. He loves gardens that put wildlife first. He teaches at the English Gardening School and The European Boxwood and Topiary Society.


Wednesday, 17th May 2023
‘Kiss Me in The Buttery’ – A light-hearted look at the folklore surrounding some of our best loved garden flowers. An illustrated PowerPoint Presentation.
By Caroline Broome
Did you know that estimates of the number of colloquial names for arum maculatum range from 90 to upwards of 150? And that one of the folklore names for viola odorata is Kiss Me in The Buttery? From primrose to pulmonaria, we take a look at the origins, oft dubious medicinal uses, superstitions and folklore surrounding our most popular garden plants. 

Caroline has given us a talk before and she is an engaging and interesting speaker. She is Chairperson of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Horticultural Society and her East Finchley garden has won the ‘Best Small Back Garden’ Trophy in the London Gardens Society Awards three years running. She also writes articles for Garden News and her local paper, Suburb News.
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Their garden features a prairie themed roof deck above the beach hut summerhouse and an exotic front garden with ornamental grasses adorning hanging buckets and a mini ‘living wall’.

Wednesday, 19th July 2023
Weeds and the Weed-free Garden
By Geoff Hodge
Or the war on weeds! Weeds can prevent you from enjoying your garden to the full – and why spend all your time weeding, when you should be getting on with far more enjoyable things? He will give you hints, tips and advice on the weapons needed for fighting the battle and what you can do to reduce and prevent weeds invading your garden in the first place. 

Geoff is a freelance garden writer and previously was the Web Editor for the Royal Horticultural Society, Gardening Editor of Garden News magazine and Technical Editor of Garden Answers magazine. He has written eight gardening books, with titles ranging from pruning and propagation to allotments and vegetable growing. He broadcasts on the gardening programmes on both BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and BBC Essex and he appears on Q&A panels at flower shows across the country. He also gives lots of talks and demonstrations at garden centres and gardening clubs. So he knows his onions!
 
Wednesday, 22nd November 2023
Following on from the AGM
How to be a 21st Century Gardener
By Timothy Walker
Several groups have asked for a talk on the future of gardening in the UK. This has been stimulated in part by the changes that we are seeing in our weather and climate. Gardeners are perhaps more aware of these changes than other groups in Society. This talk looks at the many ways that gardeners can reduce their impact on the World’s natural resources and at the same time help those plants whose habitat is evolving faster that they can. It is about much more than global warming and using peat.

From 1988 to 2014 Timothy was director of the University of Oxford Botanic Garden during which time the Garden won four gold medals at Chelsea Flower Show. Since 2014 he has been a tutor in plant biology at Somerville College. His particular interests are plant conservation, euphorbias, and his fruit and vegetable allotments. 

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