Little Common Horticultural Society

The Nursery produces their hyper-tufa troughs from the polystyrene boxes used by the fish market in Hastings - but they get theirs new! The cement and peat mix is fixed to the outside of the box and when dry they are planted. A mix of 50 per cent John Innes plus grit and bark makes for good drainage. When planting it is important to get height by using rocks as Wendy says "we do not belong to the flat earth society."

Instead of alpines some troughs could be planted with herbs and, we were told, Gentians grow better in a trough. When topped with golden grit any trough would have a professional look. In the second half of the evening Wendy talked about Camellias for which they are famous in the name of Coghurst Camellias and members were able to purchase them.

We all gathered at The Cooden Beach Hotel on March 19 for the society's annual luncheon and all agreed it was an excellent meal. One of our members, Lal Ratnayake, gave an interesting talk about his garden in Sri Lanka. He must be the only member who can grow his own bananas and avocados!

Our next function is the coffee morning on Thursday, April 10. This is the one we call a plant sale as this is the time of year and this is what we do best. Make sure you come - bring all your friends as you will be welcome at the plant stall to ask about all your garden problems. Especially how and what we should be planting in these unusual weather conditions.

The speaker at our next meeting on April 11 will be Hilary Newman telling us about "Making full use of a small greenhouse" very timely after the wicked weather we had over Easter.