GARDENS & GARDENING
The Gardens and Gardening Group has started up again. We had an initial meeting on Monday 22nd May 2023, where lots of ideas of places to go and things to do were discussed. The group will be jointly led by Liz Milbourn and Helen Eustace, you can email them by clicking on the carrier pigeon icon at the top right of the page.
Initially, we planned to meet on the 4th Friday afternoon in the month but this appeared to be inconvenient for a lot of people. A poll at the meeting revealed that the Monday afternoon suited the majority of the members that were there. So, we will provisionally have future meetings on the 4th Monday of the month, but in practice this will need to be flexible on occasions, depending on what we have planned for that particular month.
The group favoured an initial visit to Stokesley Open Gardens. This is on the 17th and 18th of June, but as it is Fathers Day on the 18th, the 17th is more suitable. We will try and organise a minibus for future trips, but this one may be a bit short notice to organise until we know numbers, etc. If you would like to go, please let us know and also let us know if you don’t have transport and we will see what we can arrange. Entry costs £7.00 and the proceeds go to the Teesside Hospice.
Margaret Boddy has kindly offered to host the July meeting in her garden at Conniscliffe Road. This will be on Monday July 24th in the afternoon, we will be asking for a donation from you for this to cover Margaret's tea ,coffee and soft drinks. Perhaps we can all bring a few cakes, biscuits etc.
Other suggestions for potential future visits include:
- Visits to gardens, e.g. Wynyard Hall, Kirkleatham, Crook, Durham University, Thornton Hall, Helmsley Walled Gardens and Newby Hall. Also, gardens open under the National Garden Scheme
- Visits to garden centres, particularly if they will do demonstrations such as flower arranging, wreath making or hanging baskets.
- Visits / meetings in members gardens. Several people were ‘happy’ to host these (Thank you for those who offered). We will try and organise these for the summer months.
- Annual plant swap and sale
- Talks from garden related, informed people eg flower arranging, allotments etc.
If you have any more ideas please let us have details. We are looking at ways to try to fund the group to reduce costs for members, if at all possible.