The Wootton Courtenay Garden Club was established to provide opportunities for villagers to enjoy talks and discussions on gardening topics, and to arrange visits to interesting local gardens. The Club is funded by a combination of membership subscriptions and the proceeds of the annual village Flower and Produce Show, held on the first Tuesday in August. Click here to view a gallery of photos from the 2023 Show.
The club warmly welcomes everyone who has a garden in the village, whether they are experienced enthusiasts or those who want to learn a little more. It is always open to new members, and offers friendly and enthusiastic support to beginners and experts alike. Non-members are welcome to attend our talks (see below).
Our garden visits, which are self-drive/car-share, are generally paid for by those taking part in the trips. However, once a year the club funds a trip for Club members only, ensuring that the selected garden is opening for charity (the National Garden Scheme, for instance), so that any funds spent by the Club go to a good cause.
The Gardening Club actively seeks to put excess proceeds from the Flower & Produce Show to good use, particularly in the field of horticulture. This year, Adam Reed at Good Vibe Veg at Horner has initiated a school visits programme with Porlock School. Pupils will be visiting on a regular basis, in their year groups, to experience the Good Vibe Veg garden. They will be sowing, growing, weeding and harvesting, and learning about where food comes from, healthy eating and sustainability. The Gardening Club has offered Adam £300 to buy tools, wheelbarrows and gardening gloves suitable for the children, and the Committee has decided to support Adam’s project again in 2024. Click here to read the latest update on this scheme. Find out more about Good Vibe Veg here.
The club has become a Plastic Free Ally, supporting plastic reduction in the garden and encouraging sustainable gardening techniques, such as avoiding the use of weedkillers and pesticides. Advice on how to avoid plastics and practice sustainable gardening may be downloaded via this link:
Annual Membership costs £10 per person
Visitors are welcome to attend meetings – £3 per person
Membership forms are circulated in January but may be obtained anytime from Marion Jay. Alternatively you can download and print off the form here: 2024 Membership Form
Chairwoman
Marion Jay 01643 841486
Treasurer
Peter Stenner
Committee
Peter Clapham
Jeremy Curtis
Nigel Humphries
Ingrid Popplewell
Programme 2024
Talks take place in the Village Hall. Our February talk will be held via Zoom. Subscription fees are due in January. Booking forms for garden trips will be available from Spring 2024.
All talks begin at 7.30pm unless otherwise specified
Tuesday 23rd January at 7.30pm – this has now been rescheduled for 13th February at 7.30pm
Gardening Club AGM
All club members are invited to attend the Annual General Meeting, which will be held in the Village Hall. After the business of the meeting has concluded, we will enjoy wine, tea, coffee and nibbles, and there will be a chance to win a prize in the Chairwoman’s Quiz.
Click on the following links to view or download/print off the 2024 AGM documents:
Agenda
Chairwoman’s Report
Treasurer’s Report
Gardening Club Accounts
Flower Show Accounts
Tuesday 20th February – Lecture
Ken Thompson – via Zoom
Modern Gardening Myths
Ken is a popular science author and Telegraph columnist based in Newton Abbott. He also writes for Gardens Illustrated magazine. You may have read his books, which include An Ear to the Ground and Where do Camels Belong? This dark February evening, Ken will keep us entertained by debunking common myths about gardening. If his books are anything to go by, this will be a lively and engaging talk.
A Zoom link will be sent out to members a day or so before the lecture.
The lecture starts at 7.30pm, but members can join the meeting via the link from 7.15pm onwards.
Tuesday 23rd April – Lecture
James Cordingley
Working in Historical Gardens with Subtropical Plants
James worked as the Assistant Island Gardener for five years on the island of Herm in the Channel Islands, before moving back to the UK to take on the post of Assistant Head Gardener at Penshurst Place in Kent in 2011. Today, James heads up the garden team as Head Gardener at Dunster Castle. He will be talking about his own experiences of working with subtropical plants, combined with observations made when visiting other gardens.
Tuesday 30th April – 2.30 – 4.00pm
Seedling and Plant Swap
Gardening Club Members only event. Entry free.
Jeremy has very kindly agreed to host this year’s Seedling and Plant Swap at The Old Rectory, opposite the church.
The idea is that members bring along surplus seedlings and small plants, and swap them for something different. No money exchanges hands – the benefit is the opportunity to grow something you haven’t tried before, and to get together for tea and cake and plenty of chat. There will be spare pots and compost for decanting seedlings from trays, and labels to help you remember what you’ve got.
NB: It doesn’t matter if you come empty-handed – all club members are welcome and you might find yourself going home with something new for your garden.
Please sow something in the next few weeks, or dig out some seedlings if you have some interesting ones sprouting in the border, pot them up and grow them on. Perhaps you have a particularly fabulous aster or red hot poker you can snaffle a piece from and pot up. Annuals, herbaceous plants, vegetables and even cuttings of shrubs – all grist to the mill. It would be useful if you labelled them so that people know what they’re taking home.
Tuesday 21st May
Self-Drive Trip to Hutswell Farm, Oakford, Tiverton, EX16 9RG
£5 per person
Previously open for the NGS, Hutswell Farm is an 8-acre garden around an old farmhouse. There is plenty to see, from ponds, a bog garden and ‘shrubaceous’ borders, to an arboretum with an avenue of Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer’, a zig-zag hornbeam walk, vegetable garden and an orchard featuring local apple varieties. Walks through ancient wet woodland lead to views over the surrounding landscape. Highlights in May include colourful rhododendrons and carpets of bluebells.
Refreshments: tea and cake, £5 on the day.
Please Note: The garden owner has no insurance for group visits. Visitors go at their own risk.
Thursday 20th June
Self-Drive Trip to Yalham Hayes Flower Farm,
Otterford Road, Culmhead, Taunton, TA3 7ED
£5 per person. Refreshments and/or flowers to take home – extra.
Aizel Finch was born and raised in Manila, in the Philippines. She came to the UK via South Africa and has been living in Somerset for 6 years, where she studied horticulture at Bridgwater and Taunton College. She began planting her flower field in 2020 and named it after her home: Yalham Hayes. The site is part of Yalham Farm; Yalham originated as ‘ewelm’ which means springhead and the farm is believed to be the source of the River Otter. With one acre devoted to flower growing, Yalham Hayes is founded on responsible farming practices, permaculture, family and community. Aizel appeared on Gardener’s World in the summer of 2022.
Aizel will give a talk when we arrive, and I have asked her to demonstrate how to arrange a hand-tied bunch of flowers. Aizel has offered us the opportunity to pick our own flowers to take home (for a separate charge). She says the flowers transport if well tied and wrapped in paper. Aizel will be around to answer questions as we walk around the flower farm.
Tea, coffee and cake will be provided for a small charge, and there are a few gazebos if we are sitting outside, or a cowshed to shelter in if the weather isn’t looking very nice.
Tuesday 25th June – Lecture
Tom Nielsen
Drought-Resistant, Sustainable Gardening
Tom Nielsen runs Biocentric Plants nursery near Wiviliscombe. He grows plants which are beautiful, tough, useful, or just particularly interesting, aiming for biodiversity and resistance to climate change. His talk will give us ideas on how best to use what we’ve got already in the garden, and he will also give advice on which plants to grow for drought resistance – useful for those of us with south-facing, sloping gardens in particular.
Plants for Sale
http://www.biocentric.org.uk/biocentric-plants/
Saturday 6th July
Self Drive Trip to Vexford Court, Higher Vexford, Nr Stogumber, TA4 3QF
Entry is free for members. £5 for non-members – to be donated to the NGS
David Yates owns a large garden which surrounds three converted barns. 1.5 acres of grounds slope gently downhill to a small stream. Roses around the courtyard entrance lead to herbaceous beds and beyond to trees and shrubs. Interesting trees include a tulip tree, azaleas, camellias, catalpa, ginkgo, Wollemi pine and Persian ironwood trees.
David will provide tea and scones, but we need to take a couple of cakes with us (at least one gluten-free) to round out the refreshments. Please email me at marion.jay@icloud.com if you intend to bring a cake, as we don’t want to overload him!
As the proceeds from this visit will go to the charities supported by the NGS, the Club will fund the £5 garden entry for members. Members have booking priority. Tea and scones charged separately.
Tuesday 24th September – Lecture
Caradoc Doy
Plant Hunters and Pioneers
Experienced speaker Caradoc Doy is an authority on the history of the Veitch Nurseries, which were the first commercial nurseries in Britain to sponsor their own plant collectors. Their plant hunters introduced 232 orchids, nearly 500 greenhouse plants, 118 exotic ferns, about 50 conifers, 153 deciduous trees, 72 evergreen and climbing shrubs, and 122 herbaceous and 37 bulbous plants from all corners of the world, many of which are popular stalwarts in our gardens today! This is a fascinating and enthralling topic for a talk.
Tuesday 26th November – Lecture
Nigel Cox
The Fundamentals of Soil – How to Manage Soil Organically
Back in September 2023, Nigel gave us a very good talk on sustainable, organic methods of garden management. During that talk he recommended we invite him back to give his presentation on soil, so here it is! This talk covers organic soil management; understanding your soil; soil chemistry and organisms; how to test your soil; drainage; fertility and pH. As any good gardener knows, the secret of gardening success is in the soil, so this lecture is not to be missed!
Wootton Courtenay 