HAPPY CHRISTMAS !

The Chairman, the Committee and Members of LODHS send their best wishes for Christmas and a Happy New Year, with hopefully lots of exciting gardening to look forward to in 2016.

The Christmas trees at St Peters Limpsfield

More of the trees and the crib at St Peters

The Narthex at All Saint's Oxted

To the right of the altar at All Saint's

To the left of the altar at All Saint's

AGM 2015

Here area few photos taken at our AGM at the beginning of  December under the direction of Chairman Rick Meakin, ably assisted by Treasurer Julie Simpson.
The formal business of the annual report, accounts, appointment of the Committee and the announcement of the Monthly Competition winners for the year were all dealt with. We then set into mulled wine and a table full of goodies to eat.
On each of the tables was an origami kit, and everyone was encouraged to "have a go". Some of the results are in the final picture.
A very convivial evening.

GOODBYE JOYCE.....

Joyce, one of our Life Members, died on Friday 13 November. The funeral was a private family ceremony, but a memorial service took place at St Mary's Church, Oxted on Thursday 26 November. The following is an extract from the tribute given at the memorial service by Susan Ashford, one of Joyce's daughters, and expresses so delightfully her passion for gardening. Thank you, Susan, for allowing us to publish.

Mum was born in Oxted in the house next door to 
where she lived from 1958 until her stroke in December  2014. She remembered being incredibly happy and was daddy's little girl  until her brother James turned up four years later. She was so upset in fact. that told me deliberately "disgraced" herself on her fathers favourite chair just to get his attention. This luckily did not upset their relationship for too long and she would follow him around the garden pushing her wheelbarrow. This was the start of her life long love affair with gardening.
Mums passion for gardening was a well established joke in the family. "Where's mum?"... " up the garden"; "where's your mother?"... "up the garden".  When the garden was in full bloom the only evidence as to her whereabouts would be the tale tale spade or fork dug into ground or the cold cup of tea left by the kneeling pad.
During the summer months we would not see her until the night had fallen often 10 o'clock at night.  As a joke my father bought her a miners head lamp. Sadly this backfired on him badly as, of course, she proceeded to stay out past night full and all that could be seen of her was a little bobbing light out in the darkness.
As we grew and left home mum would love to come and visit us, or as we came to realise, visit our gardens. She would turn up have a cup of tea, disappear and reappear in her old gardening clothes conjure up some plants from the back of the car and get to work.  We got used to going away on holiday and coming back to find our garden had been completely pruned and when I say pruned it was pruned within an inch of its life. I mean it was like shock and awe out there. Totally unrecognisable, and she was blissfully happy. Dad maybe not so much as he had to get rid of all the waste!!

My favourite we'll call it pruning memory involved a rose. Very sadly the rose outside our front door had got some sort of disease and she said it needed to go. As in, dig  up roots and all.  It was a very large well established well rooted rose. We had been sawing branches off and had started digging out around the root and it was proving somewhat reluctant in its removal. I went into the house to make us a cup of tea. On opening the front door I was confronted with two things, bearing in mind mother is now around 78, and has had several hip replacements, she is standing in front of me in the middle of wielding a very large axe down onto the root, whilst behind her is a very white face terrified looking young post man. He is shouting at me. "Is she safe to do that? I tried to stop her. I said I'd do it for her but she won't let me. Shouldn't you be stooping her?"  My mother just looked at me and rolled her eyes and went on swinging the axe, chopping at the rose leaving me to comfort and explain to the poor concerned postman that it was fine. She was fine.  This is what she did. This is what she wanted to do. She may have been frail and weak but like her father and her grandfather Maunders, before her, she just carried on without complaint. During the eleven months since that first stroke, in all that time there was only one time that she said to me I feel a bit grumpy today. She just kept going. Whatever life threw at her. She just kept going Until she couldn't anymore. So here we are now. Where she could no longer carry on.
We are here celebrating the wife, mother, mother in law,  grandmother, aunt, friend.  She was kind, beautiful, warm loving giving funny without actually meaning to be. She was so accepting of people and who they were.  For me she was my rock my roots my soul she gave so much without asking for anything in return unless you had a plant she wanted, she'd half inch that off you before you could blink.

So here's how I'd like to remember her. Cycling through Norfolk with my father, happy, young and carefree with her whole life still ahead of her. And what an amazing happy life she lead.  I was blessed to be a part of it.  And I like to think of her now reunited in God's garden with her beloved father Albert Cecil, mother Isabel and brother Jim, weeding and pruning the bejeebers out of it. I just hope God's  secateurs are up to the job. 

Susan Ashford

Joyce gets ready for the Show at Limpsfield in 2009......

.....and receives her prize from President Len!

Making Leaf Mold/Compost

Making Leaf Mold/Compost (above)

Above is a short video about making leaf mold/compost. 
This is the pilot for a series of videos which we hope to produce to encourage new gardeners.

DAVID COOP

We spent a very enjoyable evening on Wednesday 4 November with David Coop who is Head of technical Development at Westland Horticultural Ltd. If you expected a dry lecture of the pros and cons of Westlands various products you would have been disappointed! Instead we experienced an entertaining evening with the bonus of some new knowledge. What more could you ask?
Yes, we got more, including a ten question quiz, won by Helen Ellson, plus some samples of those Westland Products.
We are sure he will pay us another visit in the future, but do not miss the opportunity of experiencing one of his talks if you get the opportunity.

David chats with Sandra at the end of his talk

A FOND FAREWELL TO UNA EATON

Roy and Una's 60th Wedding Anniversary

The funeral of one of our long serving members, and the wife of our President Roy, took place at All Saint's Church Oxted on Tuesday 20 October 2015.
The church was packed with her family and friends including many from LODHS and the Hurst Green Gardening Club, plus
their respective Chairmen Rick Meakin and Jane Firmin.
Una with her beaming smile and wicked sense of humour will be sadly missed, as will her great advocacy for all things gardening.

Una enjoying her garden

The floral arrangement flowers in front of the altar for the service were as follows:

Poppies - one of Una's favorite flowers
Peony    - for a happy marriage
Ivy         - wedded love

May she rest in peace.

LIMPSFIELD IN BLOOM 2015

WELL DONE LIMPSFIELD!
Great news from the Award ceremony for South and South East in Bloom which took place on 11 September.  Limpsfield won the large village category with a gold medal and also won the Surrey County award for the entry with the highest marks in any category - and a worthy winner of the Community Conservation award.

SEPTEMBER 2015 MONTHLY MEETING

We were pleased to welcome our speaker Martin Pett whose subject was the restoration of the Tudor Garden at Anne of Cleves House in Lewes. The garden is used for the service of teas and opened in 2014, and is well worth a visit when you are in the area.

Martin chats with members following his talk

Martin provides his talks for the benefit of the gardeners charity Perennial. You can find out more about this worthy orgainsation by clicking here.

We also enjoyed our first dahlia competition, with the winners judged by the members present at the meeting. The joint first prize was awarded to Alan Essex and Julie Simpson. Congratulations to them both.

Alan's entry

Julie with her dahlias

HURST GREEN SHOW: SATURDAY 5 SEPTEMBER

STOP PRESS!!!! Entries  to the Show will be accepted up to Friday (4th) afternoon. 
(Please call Jilly if you think you may need to be later than that.)
Start checking round your garden to see what you may be in a position to exhibit at the Hurst Green Gardening Club show on Saturday 5 September.
Click here to see the schedule, and below is an entry form, or you can email or phone the details through. Entries details are requested by the evening of Wednesday 2 September.
The Show is always a good one and very worth while supporting.

WEDNESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER

DAHLIA COMPETITION

To add extra interest to our September meeting on Wednesday 2nd at the Red Cross Hall, Oxted at 8pm we have a Dahlia competition to be judged by those present at the meeting.

We will also have our usual monthly competition.

So, start looking round your garden for likely entries to either or even better both competitions, and let us have a riot of colour to start off the Autumn season.


The speaker at the meeting is Martin Pett and his subject "The Tudor Garden in the 21st Century".

LODHS FLOWER AND PRODUCE SHOW 2015

Well, it all happened at Hazelwood School School, Limpsfield on Saturday 11 July. This is our first time in this splendid venue, but alas, the entries and visitors were not as numerous as anticipated. Nevertheless, we had a splendid show as can been from the photos below.
We wish to thank the Chair of the School Governors, Jo Naismith for presenting the prizes and for the the special prize given by the school.
We must not forget two other very important people our judges; Sylvia Pocock and Carol Buldeath.
Finally, our exhibitors and helpers without whom we wold not have a show. Their contribution is invaluable.
See also our Chairman's "thank you" in the post below.

Getting ready...

.....How do we fit it all in chaps?

A busy time for tea & home made cakes

Debating the quality of the exhibits

All the trophies freshly polished by Jenny

Val Sampson receives her prize from Jo Naismith

Julie Simpson receives her prizes

Roy Eaton receives one of his awards from Jo Naismith

Steve Jones showing his trophies for vegetables

Linda Boakes receives her awards

Pat Thorn gets the award for the domestic classes

CHAIRMAN'S THANK YOU

LIMPSFIELD IN BLOOM 2015 (2)

This selection of photographs were taken on Friday 10 July,
the day after the judging . Everything was still looking at its best, so congratulations to all those who keep everything looking so good especially Ann Osborn and her band of helpers.
We look forward to learning the outcome later in the year.
To appreciate what is to be seen, take a walk up Limpsfield High Street. You will find it worth while.
Click on any of the photos to get a larger view.