\u00a0<\/p>\n
The following articles were written for the Fowlmere & Thriplow News.\u00a0 We have not had meetings since March 2020<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you thought that you would have a rest from reading those Gardening Club articles every month in the News!\u00a0 How wrong can you be? Here we are again, not with descriptions of talks, speakers, visits etc. but with something completely different\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the next few months you will have the opportunity to read about the gardening memories of many of our members.\u00a0 You will see the importance of family members encouraging children to feel the earth between their fingers, to grow their own plants.\u00a0 There will be some enchanting photos to accompany the stories.\u00a0 You will read about the vivid memories of flowers grown in special memorable gardens many years ago, of flowers which have a special significance today and of plants given by close friends, or purchased in wonderful British gardens often visited as part of a Club outing and those grown successfully after many attempts. Our members are a well-travelled lot and you will be transported back to far-off lands with exotic plants and their influence on gardens today.\u00a0 Look out for tales from the Netherlands, USA, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico – you name it, someone will have been there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gardening Memories 1<\/p>\n
Let me start with some stories about the post war years.\u00a0\u00a0 Rosemary and Sue growing up in Hampshire describe their grandfathers tiny two up two down, the fronts opening onto the street and a shared cobbled yard at the back. C1 tells how she grew up in the East End of London during the 40\u2019s just after the bombing had stopped.\u00a0 Gardening was very important to her family: the roses, honeysuckle, marigolds, golden rod, pansies and a small patch for C1 and her sister to grow radishes and cress.\u00a0 There was also an arch, for a very beautiful Alexandra Rose, made out of bedframes left from the air raid shelter which was taken down after the war!\u00a0 Ch\u2019s Grandma in Barnet introduced her to gardening, a small area with larkspur, cornflowers and lovely hollyhocks with seed collected enthusiastically by Ch.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
For the first six years of my life I lived with my parents in my grandparents\u2019 little cottage, in the middle of a small Welsh village.\u00a0 The front garden was long and seemed to me to go on forever and was always full of all kinds of vegetables tended by my grandfather. Life was still hard in those post war years and no supermarkets provided food for the family!\u00a0 But I was always more interested in flowers, the wonderful valerians that grew profusely in the long stone wall bordering the garden, the scent of the lilac and colour of the bluebells.\u00a0 Apparently every spring I always spent ages standing in front of a delicate gold-laced polyanthus and in summer I enjoyed the scent of the beautiful red Damask rose growing around the front door – my grandmother\u2019s pride and joy!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quite rightly Angela put aside her rose-coloured spectacles to tell us about her grandparents who lived next door in a small village in the Derbyshire Peak District.\u00a0 The two families shared lovely countryside views from their communal sunny back garden full of apple trees, lawns and flower beds.\u00a0 Beyond was a big field sloping down to the river Hipper.\u00a0 Angela\u2019s main interest in gardening startedshe and her brother were always hungryand would gather the fallen apples in the orchard for Grandma Alice to cook for them. The smell of fusty apples takes Angela right back to her grandmother\u2019s cupboards!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not all of us had this relationship with grandparents who gently introduced us to gardening.\u00a0 Jean’s grandfather was a professional gardener working for the Blake Odgers family of Friern Barnet. She didn’t see him very often and her first recollection of him was when she went to the potting shed to see what he was doing and he instructed her to not touch anything!\u00a0 Jean diplomatically says that she probably caught him at a wrong moment!\u00a0 Pleased to say that she later developed a love of gardens as you can see from her lovely Thriplow garden today!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read the next episode in the News when we will talk about the generation of gardeners who moved away from their parents\/grandparents to their own piece of heaven.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Keep safe, keep gardening<\/p>\n
Mary Duff<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 The following articles were written for the Fowlmere & Thriplow News.\u00a0 We have not had meetings since March 2020 \u00a0 \u201cWell, you thought that you would have a rest from reading those Gardening Club articles every month in the … Continue reading