Bloxham Broadsheet

The Gardening Club met on March 22nd in the Parish Rooms. The planned speaker, Ernie Bingham on ‘Container Gardens’, was unwell and so was unable to come. Peter Sheasby stepped in and gave us a fascinating tour of Switzerland. We had notices first from Peter Bury, including the list of outings in the summer.
Peter started by showing us a map of Switzerland and the talk was based on the three rivers –Rhine, Inn and Rhone. We started with Zurich and its wonderful window boxes, lovely meadows plus a cow! The lowlands have an abundance of Iris, Wild peas, Orchids -
Also Dragon flies, Damsel flies and amazing Butterflies. By the Rhine falls there is a wine producing woodland area. Along here there is a variety of orchids – spider, military, ladies slipper – also anemone, pasque flowers, balm.
The next stop was Davos which borders Austria – again orchids, pansies and gentians. In the lower Engedine valley were cyclamen, lots of violas, louseworts and foxgloves. This part of the tour took us near St Moritz by the high mountains. Peter had wonderful pictures of the mountains, the glaciers, the lakes and the passes as well as the flowers. In summertime the lower regions have exotic summer flowers, whereas in the mountain there are the spring flowers – crocuses and primulas.
Through the Bennina Pass the fire holly, edelweiss and anemones can be found. In some of the more barren areas cushion plants like saxifrage and also small campanulas are in the scree. Then came the Bernese Overland with really high mountains – the Matterhorn, Eiger and Jungfrau – wonderful pictures. Crocuses are growing there with soldanella, milkwort and aquilegia.
By now we were in the Rhone valley which is wide and flat with many vineyards. The mountains are steep, and it can be very hot. Here are spurges fed on by caterpillars – also lovely lizards and more orchids. In the very high mountain area round Zenmart, dominated by the Matterhorn, there are high level lakes with alpine asters and yellow mountain saxifrage
It was a most enjoyable evening. Peter is to be congratulated on all the information he gave us and the superb pictures
On Sunday May 23rd we shall be holding our Annual Plant Sale at 3.00pm in the Ex-Servicemen’s Village Hall. Our usual excellent tea and cakes will be on offer as well as the varied plants. Everyone is welcome.