STOCKSFIELD PLANTS AND GARDENS SOCIETY

SUMMER GARDEN VISITS FOR MEMBERS

Tuesday 13th July to arrive at 6.30pm.  Visit to Beamish Clematis Nursery. Leave SICA at 5.45pm.  This visit will include refreshments and a demonstration on propagation.  There is a charge for this visit of £3.50.

Tuesday 10th August  from 7.00pm.  Garden of Sue and Ian Newton at 10 Birches Nook Road.    

 Contact Jessie Newman on 843841 for further information.

The Society has flourished since the 1950's but it has, in no way, got stuck in the past. We have a wide variety of speakers on a range of subjects, sometimes illustrated by slides and sometimes by actual plants and garden implements. We make visits to interesting gardens in the summer and hold a spectacular Plant Sale in May where members sell the palnts they have carefully nurtured at amazingly low prices. There is hardly a bedding plant to be seen and the hall is filled with people and plants.

Last year was typical of our programme. We began with Dr Morphey's talk on "Botanising in the Tyne valley" followed by Janet Beakes on "Versatile Plants for Variable Conditions" and Ray Stephenson on "Sedums", where I learnt that my "sedums" weren't sedums at all. Among other speakers we heard Bob Brandt talk about ferns and we were pleasantly overwhelmed by the number and variety of specimens he brought to show us.

Our garden visits last year were to Greystones in Allendale, a return trip to Paul Morrison's garden and to Sue and Ian Newton's special garden in Stocksfield. This visit ended with supper at the Dr Syntax. In October we hosted the annual society quiz with Corbridge, Wylam and Snod's Edge. About 60 people came and enjoyed the intellectual challenge and the delicious meal.

Not just a Society for learning things then but a place to meet new people and to make friends, so why not join us? You can be sure of a worthwhile experience.

Gillian Mason