With autumn not far away, our September meeting on the topic of plant propagation was a timely reminder on how to prepare new plants for the next season.  The guest speaker was Andrew Mikolajski, a gardening author and RHS judge with over 20 years’ experience of writing, editing, lecturing and speaking, talking on the enticing topic of “Plants for Free”.

A full house in the village hall watched as he conducted a demonstration of the various methods of propagating plants.  Andrew started with the simple methods of plant division but soon moved on to the slightly more complex taking of plant cuttings and layering, the latter two methods requiring more time and patience to create new plants.  Along the way, members learned how to encourage healthy new growth from plants purchased from low cost garden centres where poor quality compost and compacted root systems result in disappointing growth after planting.  Important points to consider included how to improve root contact with the soil by freeing up root systems, using mycorrhizal fungi and adding grit to the compost when planting newly purchased treasures.

There followed an intriguing demonstration on bulb division, a method which, with patience, can offer as many as 32 plant cultures from a single garden bulb!

The stirring of interest in the hall and lively questions session afterwards was reward for an exuberant speaker who may well be making an early return to Brailes in the coming year.

Our last talk of the year will be on Thursday, 16th October, at 7.30pm in the village hall as usual.  Timothy Walker, by common consensus the most entertaining speaker in last year’s programme, returns to give a talk on “Colour in a Small Garden”.  Timothy is a botanist and horticultural lecturer who spent many years at Oxford Botanic Garden, where he rose to become Director.  Now semi-retired, he still lectures at Oxford University.

His talk is inspired by the Botanic Garden’s Gold Medal winning exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show and explains some of the theory employed by artists and gardeners to achieve a variety of effects.  Theory is supported by examples of specific colour combinations from his wife’s garden of 1/5 acre, and the new much smaller garden.

Vic Lee