SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER

Thoughts on the past and future
by Sandy Leven


It is easy to take pictures in the summer months. The light is good. Many plants and trees are looking their best.


Embothrium coccineum

It is a time for holidays, barbeques and walks along the beach. Dunblane is along way from a good beach and I always enjoy the times when we can get to the seaside.


Gulls on Carnoustie beach

Long hot evenings when it seems so much more relaxing to sit supping a glass of beer and munch on some snacks than to sit at a computer keyboard. I took so many pictures this summer that my camera decided to stop working. The On / Off switch broke and Jessops wanted £180 minimum to send it back to Canon and fix it. Even then 'it might have cost more and no guarantee that it would stay fixed', they told me in the shop. This gave me the excuse to buy a new camera. Now that I can take pictures with even more pixels and better resolution I fill the memory cards even more quickly. Luckily memory cards are falling in price. I sent of for two yesterday from 7 day shop.com where they are listed at about £15 for a 1Gb card. This firm is in Jersey and the discs arrived within days of ordering.

Since my pictures are bigger I should be more ruthless and discard more of them. However many pictures are of plants at particular times of their growth and of special places I have visited. It is a reflection of my character that I tend to discard very little, hence the number of pots of bulbs which I 'know will be better next year'. My solution, as far as digital pictures are concerned, has been to provide more space for hoarding. I use my 125Gb external hard disc to store the pictures [as well as numerous CDs]. When I have time I will organise them into categories. I just love the digital approach to snapping photos. It allows me to be more creative and when taken in conjunction with PowerPoint I can mix and match them to my hearts content.

Henry Taylor has asked me to talk to the Angus group about the 'SRGC contribution to Gardening Scotland'. This forced me to go back over my digital photos for the years since 2000. I have found every year except 2002! Where did that go?


The Prices Royal visiting the SRGC stand in 2002

In the early years I took only a few pictures of the displays. One shot of each nursery display or show garden had to be enough, just like the days of slides. At the 2004 and 2005 shows I went to the opposite extreme and snapped all the stages of the build up of the SRGC stand and all the members beavering away to achieve perfection. I am in the process of assembling the pictures into a slide show and am thoroughly enjoying doing so.


2003 display in a marquee at Gardening Scotland


2004 display in the Highland Hall at Gardening Scotland

For the past three years the SRGC area has been in the big Highland Hall at Ingliston along with all the other clubs and nurseries. In the early years we were in a marquee.



2003 display in a marquee

One glimpse at the pictures shows just how much better was the marquee than the big hall. The light was better. The plants looked vibrant and alive. The grass surround softened the plants in a way that the black concrete floor of the hall can never do. Members of the public loitered longer in the marquee.




Success, with the public too!

As they strolled round the exhibit they would stop and note special plants and delightful combinations of foliage and flowers. There was no crush of people behind pushing them along. I fully understand why the organisers put us in the big hall but I wish we could have our own area again.


Harsh images from flash at the 2004 Gardening Scotland. You miss real daylight


SRGC Display boards at Pitlochry

I wonder if there would be enough members willing to lend plants for a display of early summer flowering rock plants and bulbs similar to the early bulb display in Dunblane. A competitive show might even succeed as the AGS do at Harrogate.

One consequence of staging the display at the beginning of June each year for the past 9 years is that I have a good collection of Rhodohypoxis, Celmisias, Heucheras, Hostas, ferns and grasses. Susan Band supplied the bulk of the flowering plants for our displays and we would have been lost without her and Jean.

This year was easier to stage as we did not take many plants. We had a display of pictures, told people about the SRGC with a PowerPoint presentation, sold books and sweat shirts and publicised our summer activities at The Explorers Garden in Pitlochry. The only plants we had were in troughs, which are now at Pitlochry on the balcony of the David Douglas Pavilion.


Troughs at the Douglas Pavilion. Thank you to Glendoik Nursery for the discount on our purchase of these troughs.


Julia Corden has worked hard during the summer. How she had time to organise the SRGC practical days on top of running the garden, I have no idea. I wish more group convenors had been able to persuade their members to attend the practical days. They were very good. The Moray Group would get the prize for best regular attendance!


Julia and Anne


Nerine bowdenii in the Francis Masson area of the garden


The final display in the pavilion ends at the end of October.

It is different. I have put together a collage of the work of Lawrence Greenwood. I have enjoyed scanning, photographing arranging and editing pictures of his paintings. I want to thank Ian Young for his help with this project. The final effect is wonderful and a tribute to Lawrence whom I still miss, especially at the Perth and Stirling shows.

This year's Discussion Weekend was held at the Atholl Palace hotel in Pitlochry and was great success. I took as many plants for the show as I could and was delighted to win the George Forrest Memorial medal for my plant of Cyclamen graecum. [See the show report Forrest medal pages for a description].


Peter and Johan construct the new peat bank at the Explorers Garden

Peter Korn from Gothenburg brought the big blocks for the new peat garden at Pitlochry. He has built a superb peat wall with rock crevice outcrops. It looks perfect. The walls curve uphill bedside a curving path, behind seats and under oak trees which have been there for probably 100 years.


SRGC members at the new peat bank at the Explorers Garden

The new peat garden similar to the special area in Gothenburg Botanic Garden where Shortias grow and thrive in luxuriant excess. I am looking forward to seeing this project come to fruition. The SRGC has given a grant towards the cost of the project. This is money well spent. Our whole involvement at the Explorers garden - the pictures, the troughs, the lectures and demonstrations, the formal display bed and now the new peat garden - help us fulfil the stated aims of the SRGC. [ to encourage the cultivation of rock garden and peat garden plants] It is easy to 'preach to the converted'. At our shows we reach people who come along to see the exhibits but is very difficult to reach other gardeners. Hopefully at Pitlochry we will have inspired some people to start growing our kind of plants.



In a few weeks the AGM at Perth airport will see the start of a new SRGC year. Come along and meet fellow enthusiasts and friends. Don't forget to bring a picnic for your lunch and join us at Scone.

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