BretonHeathwww.bretonheath.me.uk
BretonHeath
We are a small friendly gardening club, centred on the three villages of Birch, Layer Breton and Layer Marney, about 5 miles south of Colchester in Essex.
The Club was set up in 2006 and currently has around 50 members, most living in the villages and surrounding area.
We are all very interested in gardening, we enjoy the company of others with a shared interest and we try not to get too technical! Gardening should be fun and in our Club it certainly is. Everyone turns up for every meeting if they possibly can.
We meet every month, usually on the second Monday at 7.30 in the evening. Normally we meet in Birch Memorial Hall during the winter months. In the summer we arrange perhaps two or three evening visits to gardens or other outside venues, plus a social barbecue for members and their guests. The December meeting always has a strong social element to it. Occasionally a few members get together in small groups for visits to gardens, guided talks etc. Many of us enjoy visiting somewhere in the company of a few others rather than going alone, so a little informal co-ordination is provided. Usually these are very small groups of perhaps up to 8 members who purchase their own tickets but share transport with someone they know. One very useful function provided by the Club Committee is to scan through the large number of courses and events and keep members informed of a few local ones that may be of interest.
We also arrange visits to one or two shows and nurseries. For example, in 2010 twenty members went to the Hampton Court Flower Show on a coach, and in September we visited Harvey's Garden Plants near Bury St Edmunds for a private talk, tour of the nursery and lunch. As we are a relatively small club, finding enough people to fill a coach at an acceptable cost is impractical, especially mid-week, so we either book a block of seats on a coach excursion that is open to the public or we car-share.
Membership costs £15 for a calendar year (only £12 for existing members renewing for 2011) and there is a meeting attendance fee of £3 to cover hall expenses etc.
The chairman is Geoff Russell Grant. You may email him - see contact page for address. He can be telephoned on 01206 330235; in many ways that is better, as you may want to ask questions.
We use email for most of our regular Club communications as it reduces cost and clerical time.
The schedule of monthly meetings is set out below. Additional events may be shown separately as appropriate.
We run both spring and autumn bulb purchasing schemes. We also order snowdrops, aconites and bluebells 'in the green' in bulk. One significant benefit for bulbs and herbaceous stock is the range of species and cultivars available; few retailers stock a wide or predictable range, or provide a catalogue from which to draw up a planting scheme. We also belong to the Kings Seeds Club Purchase scheme, which gave a 50% discount on all club seed orders placed from their 2010 Club Catalogue. Members participating had to submit their order via the Club as part of a once-only annual ordering process, with each order individually packed and delivered to the Club.
As a Club we have no central library yet. However, individual members have a huge range of material from books through advisory leaflets to course notes. One of our objectives is to make this source of reference available to all members. However we are well aware that setting up a complicated system is a waste of time unless members both wish and are able to make use of it. It may well be that publishing a bibliography will go a long way towards achieving something useful.
At present we do not intend to provide these on our own website. There is already too much information available, so we aim to provide links - see Links section at the foot of this page. We accept no responsibility for the content of these sites.
We usually meet on the second Monday of the month at 7.30pm in Birch Memorial Hall, except for visits for which times and arrangements will be notified nearer the date.
| December 12th | Christmas Social with In-House Quiz If you are coming PLEASE email Geoff Russell Grant beforehand or 'phone him on 330235 - he needs to know numbers for catering. |
We usually meet on the second Monday of the month at 7.30pm in Birch Memorial Hall, unless there are bank holidays etc.
| January 9th | Graeme Proctor - Hedging: Choice, Planting & Care |
| February 13th | Thady Barrett - Soils |
| March 12th | John Grimwood - Tips of the Trade for a Better Lawn (also ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING) |
| April 16th | Deborah Hart - Hanging Baskets |
| May 14th | Visit to Ulting Wick Garden (time etc to be advised) |
| June 11th | Visit to Beth Chatto's Garden (time etc to be advised) |
| July 9th | Richard Ford - Ornamental Grasses |
| August 13th | Summer Garden Party |
| September 10th | Darren Blunt - Arboriculture - Trees! |
| October 10th | Bob Flowerdew - No Work Gardening PLEASE NOTE: This meeting is on a Wednesday. |
| November 12th | Linda Blunt - Plants & Their Uses - Exotics. |
| December 10th | Tom Cole with Christmas Social & Gardeners Question Time |
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Page updated: 05 DEC 2011