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WELCOME TO THE HIGH KELLING GARDEN CLUB'S PAGE!

​The club meets at the Village Hall on the 2nd Monday of the month with tea, coffee and biscuits served from 7pm prior to our speaker at 7.30pm. We also have a Raffle, which is drawn after the talk.

We have a programme of speakers from September to May and rather than have a club meeting during June, July and August, these months are given over to Outings and Open Garden events to enable members to make the most of the summer.

Annual membership for 2018/2019 is just £10.00 per person and we welcome visitors to meetings at a cost of £3.00 per person.

2019/20 Programme of Speakers:
July-September's programme has now been completed. For the remainder of our year we have:

14th October: Speaker: Kristopher Harper - Subject: Fuschias
11th November: Speaker: Simon Harrap - Subject: Wildflowers of Norfolk
9th December: Christmas Dinner & Social Evening
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15th January: Speaker: Ian Bedford - Subject: Bugs in the Garden; Friend or Foe?
10th February: Speaker: Tina Hammond -  Subject: Head Gardener of Felbrigg Hall
9th March: Simon Dodsworth: Subject: Tall Bearded Irises
13th April: AGM - Followed by My Favourite Things
11th May: Speaker: Lesley Kant-Cunneen - Subject: Historic Parks & Gardens of Norwich & East Anglia

If you would like any other information about High Garden Club, its events or how to join then please contact:

Tanya Gallacher 
Tel 01263 713964
Email: hkgcsecretary@gmail.com

KEEP WATCHING THIS PAGE TO KEEP UP WITH OUR NEWS!

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HK Garden Club Newsletter - January 2020 

On 13th January Dr. Ian Bedford, who was Head of Entomology at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, gave us a thought provoking talk entitled “Garden Bugs - Cohabit, Conserve or Control?".

We all live surrounded by  a variety of “bugs” (invertebrates) although many are too small to be seen without a microscope. They are highly successful, making up 97% of the Earth’s animal species, and some have changed little since they left the sea for land 400 million years ago. Bugs are vital for sustaining ecosystems. Herbivorous bugs can be divided into chewers such as caterpillars, suckers including aphids and whitefly, and root feeders like vine weevil larvae.

Plant eaters are often seen as the gardener’s enemy but they in turn provide food for other animals, including predatory beetles and wasps (chompers), spiders and predatory bugs (blood suckers) and parasitising insects. If left alone, a complex food cycle  will develop which naturally reduces pest numbers. Life would be impossible without the pollinators - bees of all kinds, hoverflies, butterflies and beetles, and the composters - worms, woodlice and many slugs.

However, if we feel we must intervene, physical control is the best option, either barriers to keep out the pest or vigilance and removing individuals as they appear. Chemical control is best avoided by gardeners as it will not discriminate between pests and beneficial bugs. Residues can last a long time in the environment.
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The Spanish Slug (see photograph above) has arrived in gardens recently. They can be 6 inches long, are extremely slimy, will eat other slugs and snails and usually appear in their hundreds rather than singly. In the past I have chopped them with my trowel (while thinking of a bully I once worked for) but this exposes parasites that can infect pets, so I shall restrain myself to a bucket of soapy water in future. And leave most other species to find their equilibrium.

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HK Garden Club December Newsletter

On Monday 9th December our club held its Christmas Dinner at High Kelling Village Hall. The evening started with a glass of Bucks Fizz or fruit juice. Christine Foxwell and her team provided us with delicious festive food - Christmas Pie or nut roast served with celeriac mash, sprouts, green beans, peas and carrots. For dessert we could either have fresh fruit salad, cheese and biscuits or individual Christmas trifle, which had a shortbread base, a layer of dried soaked fruits and was topped with custard, cream and crunchy sprinkles - gorgeous! For those who still had room there were mince pies, chocolate mints and Turkish delight to accompany tea or coffee.

During the evening, harpist Alan Heath entertained us with a variety of songs, including ballads from his native southern states of America. Our Christmas raffle was a bumper one thanks to the generosity of members.
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Our next meeting is on Monday 10th January when Ian Bedford will speak about bugs in the garden. Guests and new members are always welcome. For details of our club please contact Tanya at hkgcsecretary@gmail.com

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HK Garden Club November Newsletter

On 11th November, Simon Harrap from Natural Surroundings gave a presentation about the wild flowers of Norfolk. Some outsiders perceive East Anglia to be homogenous and flat but we have twelve distinct natural areas with very different soils and, consequently, very different flora. Perhaps our most famous area, the Broads, is relatively poor for wild aquatic flowers as boat traffic disturbs the vegetation and the water is too polluted with phosphates and nitrates running off the land. The best places to look are spring fed ditches separated from rivers.

Most of East Anglian fenland has been drained for agriculture over the centuries but marshy areas are still rich in wild flowers. Our Norfolk Reed, cut for long lasting thatch,  can be found worldwide known by other names but, in the UK, the sole food of the British swallowtail butterfly larvae (see photo), Milk Parsley, only grows in our fens. 


Breckland is botanically unique because its very thin, dry sands over chalk do not hold heat so nights are always cold. Its flora resembles that of eastern Austria! Several of Britain’s rarest plants can only be found here. Plants that grow in our heathland and boggy mires are usually to be found in the wet, northwestern corner of Britain. Our coastal  landscape consists of soft cliffs, shingle beaches and some of the best saltmarsh in Europe and would have been similar 5000 years ago. Plants here are tough survivors.

As always, Simon’s talk was richly illustrated with examples of fascinating plants. The next time somebody remarks that we have no mountains, I’ll be able to hold my own!

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HK Garden Club October Newsletter

On 14th October, fuchsia specialist Kristopher Harper talked about James Lye who, in Victorian times, was responsible for producing many new fuchsia varieties. As head gardener for the granddaughter of the Earl of Radnor at Clyffe Hall in Wiltshire, he was keen to establish his reputation at the local flower shows and grew huge pyramidal plants for exhibition. Soon his work reached a wider following through the garden magazines of the time, who published lavish colour plates of his latest varieties, which he then sent mail order to enthusiasts at £5 per plant! Many varieties were named after his family or those of his employers. Amy Lye is particularly beautiful, with long stems, white tubes and sepals and a long, deep pink corolla.

Kristopher then gave us a demonstration of how to plant and care for fuchsias. They originate from the Americas and New Zealand. Many are half hardy, but survive well outside in light soils. Plants should be only lightly trimmed in autumn but can be cut hard back in spring to encourage new shoots. This is the best time to take cuttings.

The petals are edible and will liven up salads but you can also eat the berries and gather them for fuchsia gin or jam, although you would need to grow an awful lot of fuchsias to make a pan full!

​The picture is an engraving of James Lye and his fantastic fuchsias.

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HK Garden Club September Newsletter

​At our first meeting of this season on  9th September, our programmed speaker couldn’t come so Kathy Gray kindly stepped in to talk about the diversity of British gardens. At Borde Hill in West Sussex, the 200 acre garden includes parkland planted with specimen trees, woodland and herbaceous gardens. The Clarke family, who bought the estate in 1893, were patrons of some of the greatest plant hunters so their garden includes many exotic plants, including a number of “champion” trees (the tallest or widest recorded).

Next we visited the Winter Garden at Cambridge Botanical gardens. Plants were selected for their interesting textured bark or colourful stems, or winter flowers with exquisite scent. Trees and shrubs were underplanted with early bulbs, hellebores and bergenias.

​The gardens at Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire have been developed since 1983. Tall hedges divide the space into a  grid of rooms, each planted to create a different mood. Yew pyramids, box balls and large pots add to the formality of some areas, whereas others are softly planted.

Our last stop was Logan Botanical Gardens on the Galloway peninsular in Scotland. Here the Gulf Stream and a wide shelter belt protecting against salty winds allow southern hemisphere plants such as tree ferns to flourish.
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Kathy also talked briefly about Plant Heritage, a society devoted to the conservation of garden plants. The growth of garden centres since the 1970s, which sell a narrow range of popular, easy to produce and grow plants, has fuelled the decline of many old species and varieties. Members grow national collections of a particular plant so different bloodlines are preserved for future breeding and medical use.

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HK Garden Club August Newsletter

The High Kelling Garden Club was fortunate with the weather for their recent coach trip to the gardens at Raveningham Hall, close to Beccles. Thirty of the club's members made the trip and all agreed it had been a very special day.
The Raveningham Estate was acquired by the Bacon family in 1735 and the present owner, Sir Nicholas Bacon, came into the tearoom to welcome our members. Garden Club chairman Valerie Ross had made the arrangements for the day, liaising with Sir Nicholas's personal assistant Sonia Roebuck, who told us in some detail about the history of Raveningham and indicated areas of special interest.

The gardens, which cover 10 acres, were much improved by Lady Priscilla Bacon, who brought the walled kitchen garden back to working order, once again producing vegetables, salads and fruit for the house.

​There is a profusion of flowers all around the house and the gardens, with snowdrops, spring bulbs and roses early in the year. At present there is a wonderful collection of very tall agapanthus, both blue and white, and members could buy whichever ones they wanted to take home.
Halfway through our visit all our members went back to the tearoom to sit down together for an excellent lunch. Some members had walked alongside the large lake to see the arboretum, close to which there is a stumpery with tree ferns. Other members went to visit the estate church of St Andrew, which dates from about 1350.

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HK Garden Club May Newsletter

At our last meeting of the season on 13th May, our guest speaker Rosemary Ward led us on a pictorial tour around the ruins of southern France and showed us some of the plants associated with each. We started at the Popes’ Palace in Avignon, which became the centre for western Christianity in the fourteenth century after unrest in Rome. The ancient fortified town was established by the Celts but influenced by the invading Greeks then the Romans, like many of the ruins we saw. When Rosemary visited the town the Judas trees and several Cistus sun roses were in full bloom.

Around the Roman theatre of Orange and the aqueduct of Pont du Gard, wild rosemary and lavenders and dwarf Iris lutescens clothed the hillsides. South of Perpignan, bougainvilleas and oleanders became more common and perennial Morning Glory, similar to our annual purple variety, adorned the ancient walls.  

Rosemary also visited the famous Bambouseraie  in Languedoc, which showcases many varieties of bamboo and its use around the world. Bamboo looks at its best if you remove old canes to be able to see through the individual newer stems coloured black, green or gold. Throughout the talk, Rosemary indicated which of the plants she showed might be tolerant of our Norfolk climate.
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Our autumn season begins with a talk by Charlotte Philcox entitled, "Florists, Fairies and Flowerpots" on Monday 9th September 2019.

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HK Garden Club April Newsletter

​We held our Annual General Meeting on Monday 8th April, which was well attended. It has been a successful year with very interesting talks, a super Club outing to Bressingham and quite a few new members joining us. Sadly, Gillian Clarke and Tricia Frost are retiring from the Committee after serving for several years but, thankfully, Jean Jacob and John Green are willing to replace them. Tricia and Gillian received plants in appreciation of their service and bouquets were presented to Janet Hebburn, Beryl Noel and Ann Alborough, who provide us with refreshments at the start of each meeting. 

The members voted to increase the annual subscription from £10 to £12, which will be due at next month’s meeting.  This still offers very good value as we have 8 illustrated talks each year and discount at 4 local plant suppliers, plus a Christmas social and at least one Club outing. As well as our successful raffle, next month we are trialling a bring and buy plant stall.

After the AGM, Rosie Gutteridge presented a slideshow of photos submitted by members, titled, “Our Favourite Things in the Garden”. It’s the first time we have tried this and, after a technical glitch, was well received by the members.  

If you would like to join our Club, come along to our next meeting on 13th May at High Kelling Village Hall at 7pm or contact Tanya at hkgcsecretary@gmail.com

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HK Garden Club March Newsletter

At our March meeting, we enjoyed a very interesting talk about hedgehogs by Jan Smith of the RSPCA East Winch Wildlife Centre, who care not only for hedgehogs, but also all sorts of animals and birds in distress. They often have to find new homes for hedgehogs and Jan explained that the young animals are usually happy wherever they are taken, but the older hedgehogs have to be taken back as closely as possible to their familiar environment.

Litters of around five are born in the spring, each weighing only 7 to 19 grams. After eight weeks eating slugs, snails and worms, they weigh 350 grams and are independent. A fully grown hedgehog weighs about 600 grams and needs to eat 200 grams of food each day, sometimes travelling half a mile in a night to find it. They are very much nocturnal animals and in the winter they hibernate, usually from November to March.

Life has become difficult for hedgehogs in recent years and it is estimated that,  in this country, only about 750,000 remain. In the countryside they need hedges and woodland (but not conifers). Solid garden boundaries restrict their foraging. Ponds and drains are a hazard for them, as are bonfires and strimming.

If you do find one in your garden, don't feed them with bread or milk, which are not good for them, but offer meaty dog or cat food  (no fish). If you want to pick up a hedgehog, be sure to wear stout gardening gloves!

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HK Garden Club February Newsletter

​On 11th February, Richard Hobbs gave us a fascinating talk about snowdrops. These much loved first signs of spring are not native but from southern Europe. There are a number of species and about 2000 named cultivars which are eagerly collected by “Galanthophiles”, the world record fetching over £1900 for one bulb! Thankfully, those Richard brought for sale were far more modestly priced. I chose the species Galanthus (Greek = milk flower) gracilis, with slender outer petals or skirts which lift in the sun to reveal frilly green and white “knickers”. Cultivars marked green on their outer petals are rarer but  are slow to colonise.

Clumps should be divided every 3-5 years, not “in the green” but when the leaves are yellow and dying back, giving them chance to replenish the bulb. Bulbs that are too small will not flower. Wash clumps gently in a bucket of water to remove soil then carefully tease the bulbs apart so they naturally shed into groups of 3-4 bulbs. Snowdrop roots will pull the bulb to the right depth but planting 2-3” deep will stop nibbling by mice.

​Snowdrops will grow in shade and sun provided the soil is moist and well drained.  Add grit or sharp sand to the hole and a handful of good compost. If  plants are hungry, the bulbs will divide and not flower . Mulch the plants with 3” of compost, well rotted manure and blood, fish and bone at the start of every winter and apply a handful of Growmore after flowering in March. 

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HK Garden Club January 2019 Newsletter

Our Club continues to grow with three new members welcomed to our January meeting. 

After the grey Norfolk days we’ve endured recently,  it was uplifting to be transported to a North African Spring by our speaker, Kathy Gray, whose photos of Moroccan flora were accompanied by clear blue skies! The country is bordered by the Atlantic to the west, the Mediterranean to the north and the Sahara to the south. Two mountain ranges also influence its climate. As you would expect, the region is prone to drought so the plants tend to be slow growing with long roots and small, fleshy or spiky, leaves to conserve water. Many belong to the daisy family (Asteraceae) although we also saw euphorbias, statice and lavenders, but species not suited to UK cultivation. 
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Morocco is famous for its Argan tree (Argania spinosa)  forests, which grow in a UNESCO biosphere reserve of 8000 square kilometres. Relics of more tropical times, the trees can live for 200 years and grow to 10 metres tall. Their long roots stabilise the dry soils. The hard nuts of their lemon-shaped fruits are cracked open by hand, usually by women, the kernels then producing Argan oil for culinary and cosmetic use. This high value oil is a major export for the Berber people but the income allows them to by more goats, which climb the trees and overgraze them. In the last 100 years, half the forest has been lost to overgrazing, charcoal making and cultivation.  

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HK Garden Club December Newsletter

​On Monday 10th December, the Club had its Christmas Social. Christine Foxwell cooked us a gorgeous meal - roast pork or roasted cauliflower tart and all the trimmings followed by Christmas Bakewell tart or fresh fruit salad or cheese and biscuits.....and, of course, mince pies and mint chocolates with our coffee!

Our chairman gave us a table top quiz to keep us busy and members generously gave prizes for a huge raffle. One of the traditional highlights of the evening is to find you are sitting on the chair with the special sticker which entitles you to take the table decoration home, beautifully made by Sue Hebburn.
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Our evening talks resume on Monday 14th January at 7.30pm, when Kathy Gray will show us the flora of Morocco. In February we shall learn about snowdrops and, in March, bearded irises.  If any of these subjects interest you then please join us in High Kelling Village Hall as a guest. We always welcome new members.

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HK Garden Club November Newsletter

High Kelling Garden Club were privileged to hear a first class talk on Gertrude Jekyll at their monthly meeting on 12th November. The speaker, Miranda Villiers, is a great-great-niece of Gertrude Jekyll and she is also a goddaughter of Jekyll's great friend and long term collaborator Edwin Lutyens, the distinguished architect.

The first woman to become famous in the world of garden design and horticulture, Gertrude Jekyll was born in 1843 and was 89 years old when she died in 1932. By then she had created some 400 gardens in Britain, Europe and other parts of the world.

When she was four years old, Jekyll's family moved from London to Bramley in Surrey and that was the county that she loved and where she spent almost all of her life with her pet cats. As a young woman she travelled widely, visiting many countries in the Mediterranean and using her talents as an artist, nurtured at the Kensington School of Art, to capture memories of those countries and particularly their gardens. Helped by her involvement in the Arts and Crafts movement, she began to design gardens for many celebrities, among them the Duke of Westminster at Eaton Hall in Cheshire.
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Deciding to build a new house at Munstead Wood in Surrey in the 1880s, she met the young architect Edwin Lutyens and from then on they worked together on many projects, including Lindisfarne Castle and the beautiful Bois des Moutiers in Normandy. Jekyll was a prolific writer, with over 1,000 articles for Country Life and other magazines, and she also wrote 14 books on garden design.

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HK Garden Club October Newsletter - 50 Years Young!

Our October meeting opened with a celebration of 50 years of the Garden Club. A magnificent sponge made  by Christine Foxwell was ceremonially cut by Trudy White alongside David Hines and Carol Otty, all club members at the silver celebration 25 years ago. Philip Murrell then sliced it for us to be shared by all present. Dawn Rose provided a beautiful golden floral table decoration, which was later raffled.

Still munching, we settled down to an entertaining illustrated talk by Graham Watts, whose garden at Dale Farm,  Dereham, opens under the National Garden Scheme and raises thousands of pounds for caring charities. Having trained at Kew, he was in charge of Cambridge parks for many years and his wife, Sally, worked in their nurseries. Graham showed us how he transformed his 2 acre overgrown wilderness into a stunning plant lovers' garden. His first job in 2007 was to improve access to the large spring fed pond and cut back the bullrushes. He introduced grass carp to control the invasive parrot feather water weed. He needed to create parking in the front garden for visitors so he removed lawn and hedges and created gravel beds. New meandering paths and beds were laid around the garden and the lake pontoon was extended to make it safer for visitors.

We learned that even expert gardeners make mistakes. Graham had hoped to make a wildflower meadow under his newly planted orchard, but the soil proved to be far too fertile, so only the grass thrived. This was then replaced by a perennial seed mixture used in the Olympic Park, called “Pictorial Meadows”, which enjoys the fertility and provided quick colour. Contrary to what we might think, research on the Continent has shown that most plants, apart from vegetables, will establish better if we do not add fertiliser at planting time.  Their hard work meant that they opened their garden just three years later and the gorgeous photos showed us that a remarkably full garden can be quickly achieved yet is always evolving. 

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HK Garden Club September Newsletter

Our first meeting of the season was on Monday 10th September. We were delighted to see seven new faces. 
The Garden Club plant stall at the High Kelling Fete on 1st September was a great success (see photographs below) and the remaining items were on sale at the meeting.

Unfortunately our speaker was unable to attend, but committee members dashed home for a laptop and dvd so we could watch an Alan Titchmarsh presentation about National Trust Gardens around the country. The nearest garden was at Peckover House in Wisbech. Behind the Georgian townhouse, once owned by  the Quaker Peckover family, is a fine example of a Victorian garden, whose two acres include a spectacular rose garden, orangery and croquet lawn and many specimen plants collected by the Peckovers. Next time we’re driving west towards Peterborough, it looks well worth a detour to visit. 
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Our chairperson reminded us that the Garden Club was formed around 50 years ago, so we will have a small celebration to mark this at 7pm before next month’s meeting on Monday 8th October. We welcome new members and guests so do join us at High Kelling Village Hall on the second Monday of each month between September and May. Our evenings start with tea and a chat, we usually have an illustrated talk lasting about an hour and we hold a small raffle with prizes donated by members. We sit down to our pre-Christmas meal at our December meeting and, during the summer, we have our full day  coach outing to a garden or gardens in our region. Please contact out club secretary Tanya on 01263-713974 for more details. Hopefully our club will flourish for another 50 years.

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HK Garden Club at The Summer Fayre
​September 2018

Our club stall at High Kelling's annual village fayre did a roaring trade - thank you to everyone who contributed items, helped on the day or made purchases.