Stroud Gardening Club with speaker Jon Mason, Director of Highfield Garden World at Whitminster on the subject of fruit tree pruning

STROUD Gardening Club were delighted to welcome Jon Mason, Director of Highfield Garden World at Whitminster to their meeting on October 18, and chairperson Sharon Pellatt introduced him to the members present.

The subject for the evening was pruning of fruit trees, which was a very timely in view of the onset of autumn, even if the temperatures have remained very mild.

Jon opened his presentation with a brief history of Highfield Garden World, which is constantly moving forward, and is still one of only a few garden centres which are family owned.

It now opens at 8.30am, and Jon's job is in the Plants Section.

Highfield still has a nursery which concentrates on the propagation of the most popular herbs and shrubs.

An assortment of fruit bushes and trees were brought by Jon and these were offered for sale afterwards.

A question and answer session followed, and then refreshments were served with cakes made by Sharon and Jan.

Sharon thanked Jon for his interesting talk, and everyone showed their appreciation.

A raffle was drawn before the evening ended.

Our next meeting will be held two weeks later than usual in November and this will be on Wednesday 29 at 7.30pm at the Bedford Street Congregational Church Rooms, when our speaker is Dr Michael Jones, and the subject will be Mistletoe Facts and Legends.

Dr Jones' subject is much in demand at this time of the year, and this was the only date he had free to come to Stroud Gardening Club.

We hope that we can extend a welcome to visitors as well as our existing members to this evening - all are welcome.