Events

2024 events in addition to our monthly club meetings:

Spring Coach Trip Thursday 16th May Bridgemere Show Gardens

We had a great day out despite the rather inclement weather – the first guided tour of the award-winning gardens was luckier than the second! – with time to explore the garden centre and shopping village with a choice of restaurants for refreshments. Please see our blog for a report, with extra members’ photos on our gallery page

Garden and Home Produce Show Saturday 31st August.

There is an online Schedule and a Booking Form , with paper versions available on the village hall noticeboard, and at our July and August monthly meetings. Full details on our Annual show page.

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Garden and Home Produce Show Saturday 16th September 2023

We were delighted with the support for the return of our show, please see our Annual Show page for a full report, with photos on our blog and gallery page

Open Gardens Weekend 8th & 9th July 2023

It was a great pleasure to welcome visitors to the 13 gardens taking part, with over 300 attending, a wonderful result, many thanks to all our garden owners and helpers. We had mixed weather on the Saturday, then Sunday was mostly warm and sunny apart from the hailstorm finale! Several people said it was the best event they had been to this year with the variety of sizes, styles and settings, wonderful views, excellent refreshments and a warm welcome everywhere. “An absolute delight” was one of the many great comments. The net proceeds from programme sales will be divided between the Village Hall and the Gardening Club. Hopefully this will now return to being a biennial event in our calendar, to allow everybody the opportunity to recover from their sterling efforts.

Spring Coach Trip to John’s Garden Ashwood Nurseries Wednesday April 19th 2023

We all enjoyed a lovely and full day out, the weather was on the cool side but it stayed dry. Please see our blog for a report, with extra members’ photos on our gallery page

Below is a list of our events in 2019 which was a packed year – and with hindsight we are glad we made the most of it!

Autumn Coach Trip to Wildegoose Nursery & Morville Hall/Dower House on Friday 13th September 2019

Our last outing of the year, this time to Shropshire, was blessed with wonderful weather. Our first stop was at Wildegoose Nursery & Walled Garden at Lower Millichope then the afternoon at the National Trust’s Morville Hall where some of us went round the house & grounds, others visited the adjacent Dower House Garden. Please see the blog & gallery pages for more information & photographs of this very enjoyable day.

Garden & Home Produce Show Saturday 10th August 2019

A lovely day & well worth all the hard work!! Please see the show, blog & gallery pages for more details & photos. Thank you to everybody who supported it whether by entering, visiting or helping beforehand &/or on the day itself.

Summer Evening Trip Thursday 18th July 2019 

Anita Wright of The Garth http://www.nimbus.org.uk/anitawright/html/the_garth.html  was our captivating speaker in February this year & we chose her garden for our summer outing & we weren’t disappointed – please see blog & gallery pages.

Village Open Gardens Weekend 15th & 16th June 2019

We are delighted that despite heavy showers on Saturday afternoon & gloomy skies on Sunday morning impacting the number of casual visitors, we raised £1600 from programme sales, refreshments donations & the plant stall, which will be divided between the village hall and gardening club.

Everybody seemed to have such a good time as summed up by this feedback received via our contact page: “We thoroughly enjoyed touring the open gardens. Whether large or small, formal or with an element of randomness all were a credit to the gardeners and their ‘helpers’. Whatever your tastes in gardens there was something for everyone and we particularly liked the ingenuity demonstrated dealing with the differing shapes and contours. And the abundance of wild flower areas for bees and butterflies was noteworthy. Well done!”

Visitors also commented on the warm welcome that they received as they walked round, and many thanks go to all our garden owners & everybody who helped or supported the event in any way. Cannock Chase MP Amanda Milling enjoyed a couple of hours visiting several of the gardens and made some purchases at the plant stall, as did many others thankfully. There are some pictures on the gallery page and we hope that other garden owners living in Cannock Wood & Gentleshaw will be inspired to join in what we hope will now be a biennial event, with the next in summer 2021!

Spring Trip Wednesday 6th March 2019

For our first trip of the year we headed to the Staffordshire Moorlands to see the National Collection of Hellebores by kind invitation of last September’s speaker Mike Byford of Hazles Cross Farm Nursery, who along with his wife Tricia made us very welcome. See our blog for details & some photos with extras on the gallery page.

Christmas Social Evening Tuesday 11th December 2018

We were so relieved that the weather was kind to us this year so that this could go ahead! See our blog for details.

Sylvia’s Open Garden Evening Friday 3rd August 2018

We all had a lovely evening – details & photos are on our blog & gallery pages. Thank you again to Sylvia.

Garden and Home Produce Show Saturday 8th September2018

This was another very successful event – please have a look at the blog, Annual Show & gallery pages

Spring Calke Abbey 2nd May 2018 

This was our only coach trip of 2018 (we normally have 3) but much enjoyed by all who went. There’s a report on our blog & photos on the gallery page.