St Peter’s Probus, Carmarthen

ON Tuesday, June 14, St Peter’s Probus held its monthly meeting at the Royal Ivy Bush Hotel, Carmarthen.

The chairman Alan opened the meeting at 10.08 hours and asked members to stand in silent memory of Roland Jones, a long-standing member of the club and who had served as chairman and on the club committee for many years.

After discussing matters arising from the minutes of the May meeting, Guy raised the problem of falling membership numbers in many Probus clubs.

Malcolm said that if membership numbers did not improve clubs could be forced to close and proposed that the committee consider the possibility of combining with other clubs under a new name that meant that no one club was taking over the others.

This proposal was put to a vote and passed.

The chairman closed the meeting; the next meeting is scheduled for September 13.

St Peter’s Probus reconvened with members, guests and partners and the chairman introduced the speaker, Mr Joseph Atkins, who was until very recently the head gardener at Aberglasney.

Joseph gave an excellent and enthralling talk encompassing the complicated considerations that must be overcome when managing a top-flight garden that needed to be at its best from January to December.

The writer of this report is not a gardener other than with a JCB so apologies in failing to do justice to Joseph and the vast amount of information he imparted to those who did know about gardening.

Leaving aside descriptions of specific plants, Joseph gave some excellent pointers to ensuring a good all year display in a garden.

Early on in spring one of the keys to a successful display is a sequence of varieties of bulbs in the same plot so that as some go past their peak others are coming into bloom. Snowdrops are a good starting point and bunches can be split each year after flowering and to carpet a larger area. Daffodils can come in some early varieties that will complement the snowdrops and then with later varieties to follow through until the tulips take over.

There are also crocus from Hungary and Dutch iris to add variety, though iris do like wettish ground.

Cyclamen can flower for a long time and are not affected by wood chip, but wood chip should not be used on a flower bed as it has a poisoning effect.

Towards summer, shrubs come into their own with their leaves giving bold or subtle background colours or have blazing flower displays such as hellebores, a shrub which can last for 30 years and give the added advantage of a glossy leaf display when the flowers die down.

Wales, he said, was very suited to hydrangeas and one named “Blue Wave” was very good on acid soil, and that dahlias were coming back into fashion. Some novelty growing could also be tried by mixing vegetable plants with flowers, which is thought to complement both, so adding beauty to a vegetable garden and ground cover with colour to keep the excessive sun from drying open soil between flower displays.

Malcolm gave the vote of thanks to Joseph and the meeting responded with resounding applause.

For those who would like to meet Joseph for food, drinks and maybe some gardening tips, it is easily done at the Plough Inn, Felingwm, on the Nantgaredig to Brechfa road as he is now the new licensee.

St Peter’s Probus wish Joseph every success in his new venture.

Members then went for an excellent lunch at the hotel.