Hilltop Gardening Club: Leila Jackson on The Versatile World of the Campanula Family
TWELVE Eastcombe, Bussage and Brownshill Gardens opened over the early May Bank holiday to cooler and wetter conditions than usual although the gardens looked wonderful despite the forecast.
Next year we will hope for better weather.
This meant that, with fewer visitors, monies available for local charities and the NGS this year was down on previous years.
However, the cream teas and cakes sold in Eastcombe Village Hall were excellent as ever.
Those who braved the weather, had a wide range of home-made cakes and scones to choose from.
Apart from the NGS, charities supported this year are Hope for Tomorrow, Acorn Children’s Hospice and Breast Cancer Care.
The following evening, members of the Hilltop Gardening Club, were introduced by a lively Leila Jackson to The Versatile World of the Campanula Family.
Leila runs her nursery with her dad alongside the family farm in rural Herefordshire.
Most of us know the English Bluebell and the Harebell as well as a wide range of cultivated campanulas (bellflowers) both tall and small with closed bell flowers as well as open ones.
There are around 500 species, annuals, biennials and perennials, stretching from the temperate north to the Mediterranean.
Dwarf and alpine varieties can be no more than an inch high while tall grassland species can be seven foot.
The flowers can be solitary, in pannicles or whorls and tend to be blue to purple, pink or white in colour.
Other members in the same family are Adenophoras, Symphyandas, Phyteumas and Codonopsis and Leila had a good selection of photographs to demonstrate the versatility of this family.
At the end of the talk members were able to buy some of Leila’s interesting plants.
The Club’s social evening on June 7, will include an interactive demonstration of flower arranging with Alwyn Page.
Guests are welcome to any of our meetings, held between October and July, at Eastcombe Village Hall on the first Tuesday of the month.
Membership and other information can be obtained from Margaret Headen on 01453 884869 or our website – hilltopgardeningclub.org.uk
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