As our planned March speaker unfortunately had an accident two days beforehand, we were so lucky that our April speaker could come a month early! With less than 24hours’ notice, Samantha Hopes of Hopes Garden Plants gave a very professional and enthusiastic talk, introducing us to one of her favourite plants, the little-known Roscoea, a hardy member of the ginger family. She shared her passion for this greatly underused tuberous perennial that has so much to offer, with a great range of colours from white to deep purple. By planting different varieties we can also have flowers from early summer till late autumn.

Samantha explained how best to grow and propagate them, accompanied by excellent photos with a very good video of division and repotting. She’d also brought two varieties for us to buy, R. ‘Harvington Summer Deep Purple’ and R. ‘Harvington Evening Star’ which weren’t showing in their pots just yet but checked for growth under the compost, plus some other lovely indoor and outdoor plants. Then she drew our raffle and judged our monthly competition, which is attracting good entries with its new format, a dozen this time, well done to everybody who entered. Anita took first place with Sue second and Rosalie third, all shown here. There’s also a pic of Chris’s cymbidium on her table at home, which we thought you’d like to see.

We displayed the photos we’d chosen for the SAGG photo competition from the excellent selection provided, not easy as they were all so good and it’s a real team effort again, with photos from four members in the entry. Fingers crossed we do well again! Another thoroughly enjoyable evening with members and guests also able to choose free books and magazines to take home as well as chat over refreshments.