Our latest annual programme is shown below, along with those from previous years. These will give you a feel for the breadth of subjects covered and the wonderful speakers who make the journey to Cwmyoy Hall. For more detail of the current programme please go to Our Next Meetings
Llanthony & District Garden Club
Programme of Speakers 2025 – 2026
All the talks are at Cwmyoy Memorial Hall on Mondays at 8pm
8th September 2025 Hannah Gardner on BULBS
Hannah is a very busy garden designer and plantswoman. Her company New British Landscapes is involved with many prestigious and inspirational public and private projects. Check out the website newbritishlandscapes.co.uk
13th October 2025 Paul Green on FOLIAGE
Paul runs Greens Leaves Nursery at Newent which specialises in rare and unusual plants from around the world. They are often to be found at rare plant fairs and shows around the country.
10th November 2025 Arne Maynard on THE CREATION & DEVELOPMENT OF THE GARDEN & SURROUNDING LANDSCAPE AT ALLT Y BELA
Arne is an internationally renowned garden designer. In the last 30 years, he has created over 250 gardens all over the world, including two award-winners at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. His beautiful garden near Usk is admired locally and by gardeners all over the world.
8th December 2025 AGM at 7.30 followed by MEMBERS’ EVENING
12th January 2026 Helen Picton on WHY WAIT FOR SPRING?
Helen and her family run Old Court Nurseries and The Picton Garden in the Malvern Hills. They are specialist breeders and National Collection holders of Michaelmas daisies and Polypodiums. Both collections are displayed in the 1.5 acre Picton Garden along with large displays of Galanthus, Heritage Narcissus, tender succulents and more. Her talk will be on gardening in Winter.
9th February 2026 Justine Gallaccio & Stephen Anderton on HOW TO MAKE YOUR GARDEN EASIER TO CARE FOR
These experienced gardeners are well known to Garden Club members. Justine is an extremely knowledgeable plantswoman who has worked in great gardens all over the country. Stephen has restored historical gardens, has a strong interest in garden design and has written for The Times and gardening publications for decades.
9th March 2026 Jo Thompson on MAKING A CUTTING GARDEN
Jo runs the award winning flower farm, Wye Valley Flowers, near St Briavels. She provides flowers for special events, including the King’s coronation, and runs workshops at the farm.
13th April 2026 Derry Watkins on PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES
Derry, from the famous Special Plants Nursery near Bath, has spoken to the Garden Club several times and is popular for her very informative talks and the plants she brings to sell.
11th May Dean Peckett on GARDENING UNDER GLASS
Dean has a garden advisory and design service based in Usk and is well known for the excellent workshops and courses he runs locally on a wide range of horticultural subjects. This will be our first talk on greenhouse gardening.
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2023/24 Programme of Talks
Monday 11th September
Alys Fowler: Eat What You Grow – How to have a productive and undemanding garden that feeds you, the soil and the wildlife.
This talk will take an in-depth look at polyculture, where diversity is promoted over single line variety growing. Using ecological principles to guide food growing it is possible to support the whole community of the garden to create a wildlife friendly space that is less work than traditional methods and still creates bountiful harvests. In this talk we will look at polyculture mixes that support healthy soils, reduce pest and disease issues and feed a wide variety of insect life. This will include looking at the life cycles of vegetables and herbs to learn about sowing, seed saving and simple breeding techniques to create vegetables suited to your conditions.
Monday 9th October
Helena Gerrish: Mounton House. The restoration of a Monmouthshire country house and garden, built by Henry Avray Tipping.
With terraces overlooking the Severn estuary, water gardens and an enormous pillared pergola, the house was an Edwardian dream that fell into decay. Luckily it has been restored, and its gardens redesigned with the light touch of Arne Maynard.
Monday 13th November
Liz Knight: Edible Ornamentals
A leading wild food expert, forager, chef, author and founder of Forage Fine Foods, Liz will talk about the more surprising things you can eat from the Garden. Her book “Forage” will be on sale and there will be some interesting things to taste.
Monday 11th December
AGM at 7.30pm
followed by Members Evening and Quiz
Monday 8th January 2024
Sue Mabberley: Re-wild Your Garden
Throughout the development of the garden at Nant y Bedd, Sue has worked closely with the living landscape in tune with the flora and fauna of the valley. She will talk about how you can make a beautiful and productive garden that is in many ways still wild
Monday 12th February
Alice Sidwell of Orchard Acre Community Supported Agriculture: From Kitchen Garden to Market Garden
There are a multitude of ways one could respond to the many current global crises we face. Jonny and I felt a direction for our working lives emerging over the Covid lockdown of 2020. Spending so much time out in the kitchen garden focused our minds on food growing. We noticed the shift in public discourse as our current food system with its long supply chains showed its fragility.
Thus Orchard Acre emerged, run with a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model and using Organic and No-Dig growing practices our small family business has produced around 30 veg boxes each season for local families. We alsosupport the Abergavenny Food Bank and local community fridge Cwtch Angels with weekly deliveries of salad and other veg for their food parcels which we fund using a sliding scale pricing system for our veg shares. I will speak about why we started Orchard Acre, our production techniques and how the CSA model works for us.
Monday 11th March
Laura Willgoss of Wildgoose Nursery:
Creating Beautiful Borders
Laura and Jack Willgoss met at RHS Garden Wisley as trainees back in 2006-2008. After working as gardeners on private estates they embarked upon their dream of setting up a specialist nursery growing all the plants they loved – herbaceous perennials and grasses and a large collection of perennials violas. In 2013 the couple took on a derelict Walled Garden in the beautiful Shropshire Hills and have spent the past 10 years creating a beautiful garden that in turn stocks the nursery with many treasured new introductions and established favourites.
Monday 8th April
Sarah Price: Reframing the Wild Garden: New Perspectives on Garden Making
Sarah will lift the lid on her methods on garden making, showing how we don’t have to choose between beauty, practicality, and sustainability. Through considered choices of plants, and a circular approach to sourcing materials, her gardens are low impact, innovative and rich in wildlife. Examples will be drawn from local projects, with Sarah focusing in on the development of her own garden in Abergavenny.
Monday 13th May
Sioned Edwards: Floral demonstration
Nothing gives me more pleasure than gathering flowers from the garden and combining them carefully. I enjoy capturing their intricate detail and delicate forms to create whimsical and untamed arrangements. I use all sorts of accessible mechanics to keep sustainability at the heart of what I do. Flowers have a restorative nature that brings calm and beauty to any room. I’m looking forward to sharing creative and simple ideas with garden flowers that can all be replicated from your gardens and into your homes.
2022/2023 Programme of Events
Cwmyoy Memorial Hall NP7 7NF
8pm on the second Monday of every month
September 12th Herbs for the Future
Jekka McVicar, famous for her herb nursery outside Bristol and her award winning displays at Chelsea Show, is the Royal Horticultural Society’s Ambassador for Health and Well-being. She is passionate about the need to make gardening more sustainable and returns to speak to us, for times of climate change, about which herbs will thrive in which conditions, heat, drought, semi-shade etcetera.,
October 10th The Original Eden: the Wild Fruit Forest of Kazakhstan
Alys Fowler is a well-known gardener, writer and presenter. She writes a weekly column on gardening for The Guardian Weekend Magazine. Her talk will look at the wild fruit forest of Kazakhstan and their ecology to understand how better to grow fruit and perennial vegetables in mixed settings and forest gardens.
November 14th Meadows in Gardens
Dr Steph Tyler will talk about the work of the Monmouthshire Meadows Group whose aim is to restore flower-rich grasslands locally by enabling members to manage their own fields and gardens effectively. A patch of grassland of any size is of huge conservation value for flowering plants, invertebrates and for fungi. We will see how Broad-leaved Helleborines can thrive in a tiny garden meadow and how Cowslips and Green-winged Orchids can be encouraged to grow on a lawn…
December 12th AGM and Members’ Evening.
AGM at 7.30 followed by a quiz and a chance for members to share their experiences of the gardening, or garden-visiting, year over a glass of mulled wine and mince pie.
January 9th Know Your Garden Ferns
Stephen Anderton, our club’s President, is gardening correspondent of the Times and former National Gardens Manager for English Heritage, and has had a lifetime’s fascination with ferns. He will be talking about how to know them apart, both the native species we all take for granted and the non-native varieties we might plant. No microscopes, no hand-lenses, it can be done by knowing how they behave and what they look like when. Once you know which is which, you can really start to plant constructively and take advantage of their beauty.
February 13th Seed Savers of Rajasthan (plus a seed swap)
Adam Alexander lectures widely on his work discovering and conserving rare, endangered garden crops. His knowledge and expertise growing out vegetables for seed is highly valued by the Heritage Seed Library, for which he is a seed guardian. He shares seeds with other growers and gene banks in the EU, the USA and Canada.
March 13th Dahlias & Summer Bulbs
Rob Evans of Pheasant Acre Plants. Pheasant Acre Plants is an established family nursery near Bridgend. They specialise in the supply of Gladioli corms, Dahlia tubers, plugs and plants and bulbs for all seasons and have received Gold Medal Awards at Flower Shows including Chelsea. Rob will talk about buying, planting and growing bulbs to flower this summer.
April 10th Preserving Your Garden Produce
Kevin Alviti is a carpenter who runs a very productive homestead. His talk will be full of anecdotes about his “English Homestead” and will be about far more than jam and chutney, including how to waste less from your garden and deal with gluts. Dehydrating, canning or fermenting, there aren’t many weeks in the year when something can’t be preserved for future use.
May 8th Rewilding the City: lessons we can learn from growing in challenging environments
John Welsh is a guerrilla gardener working with communities and individuals to re-wild the city, turning often neglected inner city sites into gardens full of flower, vegetables and wildlife. He talks about what motivates him to leave the comforts of home to garden in the street.
Come along to learn from the experts, meet other local gardeners, enjoy a cuppa and have a flutter on the monthly raffle.
llanthonygardenclub.org 