News
AGM held on Zoom
The 2021 AGM was organised on Zoom at the beginning of this week. Notices including the resolutions had been sent out well in advance and voting was on line. There were no votes against any of the motions. Tours Committee Chairman Maddy Hughes (pictured), whose three-year term of office has come to an end, had offered herself for re-election and is continuing on the seven-member MC. Most members in the Zoom meeting were within the UK but there were some logging in from Belgium, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Ireland, Spain and USA.
Ottershaw Cacti and Dunsborough Park
After a nine-month break due to Covid-19 restrictions, it was really good to attend two contrasting venues in Surrey on 14 June, with fellow MPG members. Ottershaw Cacti grows rare and unusual cacti and other succulents, holds three National Collections and is a double Chelsea gold medal winner. Owners Daniel and Jo Jackson gave insights into the collection and many members went home with new plants. Members continued to Dunsborough Park for a picnic lunch and tour with Head Gardener James Gillions who touched on the history of the place, paying particular attention to the Mediterranean planting and waterwise practices. The gardens have unusual touches like the ginkgo hedge, nepeta borders, a fabulous folly bridge spanning the water garden and statuary.
Vida Svahnström MSc at Kew
Vida Svahnström, an MPG member since 2018, will be studying for an MSc at RBG Kew from autumn this year. Vida was awarded a bursary by MPG to go on the field trip to the Peloponnese in March 2019, led by John Fielding. At that time she was a student at the University of St Andrews but graduated this month with a first class degree in evolutionary biology. Her postgraduate studies will be on plant and fungal taxonomy, diversity and conservation.
New website
We are pleased to announce that our new website is now up and running, providing a fresh new look using a more modern approach that will make the site more adaptable to use on different sorts of devices. This will not only help members and those interested in our society, it will also improve our ranking with search engines, which downgrade sites in their search results if they are not dynamically adaptable to use on PC, tablet or mobile phone.
The Abbey Garden, Tresco
We had an excellent members’ Zoom meeting followed by a very interesting talk by Mike Nelhams, head gardener at The Abbey Garden, Tresco. If you missed the talk, you can catch up now. Mike also mentions his seed list from the garden.
Winter Meeting 2020
We had a full house at our Winter Meeting at RHS Wisley this year. Our speaker was John David, head of horticultural taxonomy at the RHS, whose talk was entitled ‘To Spain for daffodils’. It covered details of his research trips to study daffodils through a transect of the country from north to south, covering most of the 25 species found in Spain. Pictured here is Narcissus papyraceus. A recording of the lecture with video of the slides is now available. View the full list of the plants that John references.