Clubbing together for gardening fun

Personal contact and exchange of experiences with fellow enthusiasts is the most natural route to success for would-be or experienced gardeners. And we’ve missed it in recent times. However, there was joy all round last Tuesday evening when Alnwick Garden Club met for the first time in 18 months or so.

We’d remained in touch as a committee through occasional online meetings but had no idea how our 60 members would respond to the invitation: An AGM with social distancing of chairs, hand sanitiser available, masks optional, followed by presentation.

We’d have settled for 20 turning up to make the AGM quorate but happily 30 came and I was able to show a few short video clips of home-based gardening from the past year.

Emboldened by this meeting, we plan to go again the last Tuesday in October, depending on the pandemic situation.

Alnwick Garden Club was formed in 1960 by Jo Smith, and began with a simple format, a guest speaker plus ‘magic lantern’ into which individual slides were loaded, occasionally upside down. The technology has changed to a slick power-point presentation but we’re back to the solitary speaker. In between, we had a marvellous period when a team of local knowledgeable gardeners were given 15 minutes each to share their topical information with us.

The late Gerry Stanners, George Avery and Alf Muckle were tops in vegetable and cut flower production.

David Parker was and remains a top all-round gardener who always had something innovative to offer for each session; Jimmy Givens simply brilliant and still gardens in the shadow of Cheviot.

They loved the new (naughty) joke he’d offer at the end of each performance and booed when I waved a red card which he always ignored!