|
|
The June meeting of the Garden Club was held in the WI Hall with Ron Collins in the chair, reporting that a good evening had been spent by members who visited Miss Hall's garden in Walkington earlier in the month. An appeal has been made by the Village in Bloom committee for bluebell and other bulbs to plant in Centenary Wood. On behalf of that committee, presentations were made by Gina Simpson to the winners of the Spring competitions. The winner of the Garden Trophy went to Jill Shipley of Orchard Lane, Hutton. The winners of the 'Adjacent Houses' display were Jo Richards and Margaret Kitching of Main Street, Cranswick, and the Photographic Trophy winner was Lynn Hall with a picture of her own garden. Speaker John Freer of Leeds introduced his talk about daffodils with a pot of the plants that were just ready to be cut down some six weeks after the end of the flowering period. As a specialist grower of daffodils, John showed catalogues containing more than thirty thousand named varieties of the species in thirteen divisions. Plant breeders need to keep detailed records of the parentage of the bulbs, the dimensions of the bulb, and so on. From seed to flower takes at least five years with at least another two years for the stock to be catalogued and accepted. Show growers grow their stock from thin slices of bulb, and daffodils can be grown at any time of the year, making them extremely versatile. For the amateur grower the bulbs should be dug up every three to four years and only the strongest bulbs should then be replanted. Altogether this was an interesting insight into what appears to be a very ordinary plant grown in almost every garden in the land, as well as in public and similar areas such as verges and roundabouts. John was thanked for his talk and slides and refreshments followed.