Coming soon..
Monday 28th. November
“From the Andes to Auchtermuchty: Origins and Development of the
Potato”– a
fascinating look at the history and cultivation of the potato
Wednesday 14th. December
Our Christmas extravaganza! Banish those Winter blues with an evening
of fun and entertainment
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As you will have noticed, we have started the last few meetings with
some local photos. If you have a hobby related to gardening why not take
some digital photos and let one of the committee members know?
Club Membership
May we remind those members who have not yet paid, that the 2005/06 fees
of £5 per household are due.
Please tell your friends and family about our Club - they are very welcome
to come along to any of our meetings
and see what we have to offer. Meetings start at 8.00 p.m. in the Dreghorn
Loan Hall and people start to arrive from around 7.45, time to browse the
library. Teas and coffees are served after the main speaker, at about 9.15.
All in all great value for money!
Newsletter
We are always on the lookout for short articles for our newsletter, so
if you have a gardening tip to pass on, or a new technique to share or
even discover a plant that does particularly well in our Colinton micro-climate,
why not contact Newsletter editor Alasdair Ferguson (477 0178)
Fertiliser order
As you will know from Isobel’s report, we have had to suspend
the fertiliser orders this Autumn but we hope to have a new supplier in
place in time for the Spring.
Improved Access to Dreghorn Loan Hall
Dreghorn Loan Hall has now installed disabled access which includes a
ramp and a chair lift. If any member is intending to make use of this facility
would you please contact a Committee Member 24 hours in advance so that
we can obtain the key to the chair lift mechanism.
(Committee Members' phone numbers are given in the green Membership Booklet).
If anyone is finding it difficult to attend because of transport, please
ask a Committee Member and we will see what can be arranged to help.
Christopher Davies (Secretary) 441 2152
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From the pen of our Chair...
“No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, -
November!”
Thomas Hood, Ode: Autumn
In my garden, the prunus and the acer are weeping blood coloured leaves
which form great carmine pools. The brilliant gold of the betula has
already faded to form dull brown piles of rustling paper. The ancient
plums stick black witches’ fingers to the sky; a reminder that
tomorrow is Halloween and, despite the un-usually warm weather, we cannot
expect autumn to continue forever. The clocks have changed and darkness
has des-cended; time to plant the last bulbs, prepare the garden for
Winter and come inside to the lights.
This year our festival offering will be a spark-ling silver extravaganza
to celebrate 25 years of the Club. I do urge you to join us in Dreghorn
Loan Hall on Wed-nesday 14 December for our Christmas Party. Our parties
are renowned! Dine with fine wine by candlelight in an atmosphere of
jollity and conviviality. Allow your brains to be tickled by our quizzes
and sit back and be entertained by our home grown enter-tainment with
plenty of opportunities for part-icipatory singing and jokes. This year,
the theme is magical and we would like you to wear something silver if
you can, even if it is just a wee bit of tinsel. After last year’s
wonderful hat creations, I have every faith that your outfits will be
memorable. If you have recently joined the Club, please do come along
to this event which is very friendly. We end the evening singing carols
and always go out into the night with a warm feeling of comradeship ready
for Christmas. This year tickets are priced at £6. It would be
very helpful if you could let the Committee know in advance as it helps
with catering.
We have one more lecture to look forward to in 2005. On Monday 28 November,
George Mackay will be talking about the origins of the not so humble
potato. George Mackay is famous as an entertaining and authoritative
speaker and I do encourage you to come on that evening which promises
to be a wonderful journey from the Andes to Auch-termuchty.
Our season started with a lecture on alpines by Professor David Rankin.
He showed us some amazing slides of the alps in the U.S.A., China and
Switzerland with beautiful vibrant flowers. A list of those he described
is available to members on the website or from the Committee. His wife
brought plants to the meeting as she has a specialist nursery.
The plant sale on 8 October was well attended. Although it raised less
than last year, there was a profit of £183 before outgoings and
it was a happy and social occasion. I would like to express thanks to
all who helped and those who brought plants.
On 24 October, we had another very interesting lecture from 3 rep-resentatives
of the Lothian and Edinburgh Env-ironmental Partnership, on recycling
and making compost with tips on how to make the right mixture. Do you
know your greens and browns?
We are running a workshop at the Botanics on “ Plant Division” on
1 April 2006 at a cost of £9.50. If you did not register and pay
at the last meeting, please do so now. Places are limited but if this
is over-subscribed we will run another one.
Johanna Carrie and I can report that the Colinton School club is well
attended (we have had numbers ranging from 10 to 16, from primary 6 and
7) and appears to be enjoyable. We had one session planting hyacinths
in pots and in jars of water. Needless to say, carefully monitoring prog-ress
reveals some have grown satisfactory roots and some have not! We had
two sessions planting scillas, chinadoxia and crocus, outside. The most
ambitious group plan a Scottish saltire! As the ground was hard, this
was no easy task but the group were enthusiastic. One boy told me he
and his mother were going to plant bulbs now he knew about them and another
mother told me her daughter “just loved the club”. Last week
on a gorgeous autumn day, we walked in the wood by the school, and collected
a variety of seeds and coloured leaves to make pictures, discussing the
reasons these appear in autumn.
Unfortunately, as many of you will know, we were not able to proceed
with our fertiliser order this Autumn as negotiations with our usual
supplier stalled. After careful consideration, the Committee decided
to return all cheques to members who had sent in orders. Members of the
Committee are working hard to research possibilities for a Spring order
and we will give you information about this as soon as possible.
If you have forgotten to renew your subscription, please contact Linda
Innes, and if you have difficulty in attending meetings because of disability
or other reasons and would like a lift to the Dreghorn Loan Hall, please
contact a member of the Committee as we may be able to arrange a lift
for you. We would really like to see you.
I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting, and at the Christmas
party.
Best wishes to you all and Seasons greetings,
Isobel Lodge
Chairperson
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Just a reminder – if
you have access to the internet, it really is worth checking out our website
regularly. The website (www.colintongardens.org.uk) is updated often and it’s
useful to visit the site often. You’ll find:
Well known faces lurk among