Cothigardeners’ year began in customary style recently with the AGM which was very well attended. Yvonne gave a resume of the busy year the group had enjoyed in 2019, Steven reported on the healthy state of the group financially and in terms of member and visitor numbers over the past year. Membership for 2020 is £15 per person, which is a slight increase, but still represents excellent value for money given the speakers planned for the years ahead. The club is very fortunate to have had such a hard working chair and treasurer who have both stepped down this year, and everyone will want to thank Yvonne and Steven for their work, and we’re equally pleased that Elena and Andy have come forward to take on these vital roles.
With the AGM finished, a short auction of donated snowdrops, art and craft items was held which raised valuable additional funds to go towards the running of the club, as well as a table of book sales. Many thanks to everyone who donated or indeed bought any of these items.
We then enjoyed a shared plate supper of savoury and dessert food, before the evening finished with another one of Derek’s challenging quizzes. Many thanks to Derek for all his effort in putting this together and indeed to Tina for Marshalling us into entirely non competetive teams (?) It always amazes me the combined knowledge of Cothigardeners reflected in the final team scores, although I’m not sure anyone knew what plant capers come from?
The answer is The Flinders Rose. I’m not sure we’d have escaped with caper bush, its other name…
For all members hanging on excitedly, waiting to find out what the programme for 2020 is, it can now be revealed – both below and on the separate web page for speakers. Many thanks to Fiona and Jenny, the programme organisers, for working to arrange this for us all. Click below to open the file.
Cothi Gardeners Programme 2020 for website
There’s also a separate page with some local garden related events for the year 2020, which will be added to throughout the year, so do check back in due course. Click here for this page.
Anyone interested in visiting Fiona and Julian’s garden for snowdrops and other spring bulbs can check when they’re opening for the NGS this year, by looking at their website, click here. They’re only opening by short notice “Pop Ups” if/when the weather looks benign (ish)
Later in the year, John and Helen’s wonderful 4 acre garden at Ty’r Maes is opening from April to October by arrangement on pre arranged dates. Click here for more details.
This year’s monthly speaker meetings begin with a joint presentation by Lucy Witter and Abigail Lowe from The National Botanic Garden of Wales who are going to be talking about their ongoing research to help save our pollinators.
This will be really interesting and show how Wales is at the forefront of understanding to risks to our pollinating insects and what we can do to help mitigate this. Something of vital interest to us all. I’m sure everyone will want to come along on Wednesday February 19th at 7 for a 7.30 pm start to find out more.
Cothi Gardeners 