At their meeting on 27th October members were taken on a year’s journey to see a selection of the abundance of flora and fauna in Malcolm Brownsword’s garden. We started in January, where Viburnum Bodnantense ‘Dawn’ and Daphne Odora both look beautiful and produce an intense scent. Onion seed is sown in the new year and we had a tour of inspection of Malcolm’s seed and nursery beds. In February sweet peas are pinched out and we saw an abundance of hardy orchids, especially pleiones (at their best in April) in unheated greenhouses, also Lewisias. In the garden in February and March we saw daffodils, pulsatillas, crocus and hellebores. Moving on to April, and we saw wisteria, Iceland poppies and mecanopsis in bloom. In May the tree paeony was particularly beautiful and we were taken on a tour of the Malvern Spring Show. Moving on into early summer we saw Ms ensata, sweet peas, Romneya, auriculas, butterflies and dragonflies. We were shown a demonstration of the propagation of gloxinias and African violets, then moved on to the prolifically flowering Clematis ‘Arabella’, alstroemerias, day lilies, orchid Southern Marsh grown in buckets, passion flowers, Mimulus and candelabra primulas. Next we visited Wisley in summer, particularly the bonsai and alpine show gardens. Then back into Malcolm’s garden in high summer with alliums Penstemons, Daphne and many other lovely blooms. On into autumn with salvia patens, cyclamen, hibiscus, michaelmas daisies and autumn crocus and the pre-winter displays of Acers, gentians, arum itali-cum and ripening grapes.
As a final treat we had an audio-visual presentation with music of visits to Goring Reserve, with delightful views of the Thames and Oxford Botanic Garden. This was an interesting view of Malcolm’s gardening year and we look forward to January, when it all starts again with an illustrated talk on 26th January by our Chairman, Peter Sheasby, on the flowers of Canada. Everyone is welcome at 8pm in the Parish Rooms.