I have great pleasure in posting this message from Liz Mills, SRGC President:
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A happy New Year to each and everyone of you who read or contribute to the Scottish Rock Garden Club’s Forum.
I want to send you all my very best wishes for 2012 wherever you are in the world. As I am writing this, we are just recovering from a terrible winter gale which has blown down two trees in our garden and left us with a telephone pole leaning at an interesting angle. But I know that many of you will be enjoying lovely sunshine and warmth – or perhaps you’re looking out over a blanket of snow. Wherever you are I hope you know that, through the Scottish Rock Garden Club, you have friends all over the world inspired by our common interest in alpine and other plants.
All the Scottish delegates at the 8th International Rock Garden Conference in April last year were delighted to meet those of you who managed to come to Nottingham. We’ve got lots of fond memories not just of the excellent talks but also of new friendships made. I was particularly glad to meet far flung Forum members and also the 15 young people who attended the Conference under the Assisted Places Scheme. Many came from the UK but they were joined by Razvan Chisu from Romania, Gergely Lunk from Hungary and Calvin Becker from South Africa. All deepened their knowledge of rock garden plants and made contacts which I hope will benefit them throughout their lives.
Like many of you I am eagerly waiting for my seed order from the Seed Exchange to arrive and am hoping I get everything I’ve asked for. The Distribution Team (mainly members of the Edinburgh Group) were busy setting up the hall last weekend and will work every weekend in January to deal with all your seed orders. And this is followed by the first big Scottish gathering of the year, the Early Bulb Display on 18 February. This is always a great occasion when some 200 of us get together to dream of spring to come, admire lots of beautiful early flowering plants grown by those who are lucky enough to have alpine houses, listen to interesting talks, and best of all meet up with all the friends we haven’t seen since the autumn. And then comes the Show season where our best growers display their wonderful plants. To those of you who aren’t able to visit the Shows in person, I hope you can catch the flavour of them through the photos that appear on the Forum and in the Club Journal.
One new and exciting development which we are looking forward to in 2012 is the new Alpine House at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. It will stand next to the existing Alpine House where plants are grown and displayed in traditional pots plunged into sand beds. The new Alpine house is of a futuristic design enclosing a big tufa wall which will extend outside the House itself. Many of us are planning a visit to the Garden in the autumn when we hope the work will have been completed.
Lastly I would like to thank our retiring Subscription Secretary, Graham Bunkall, who has dealt so efficiently with all your memberships for the last 5 years and welcome his successor, Christine Boulby. Also a warm welcome to David Nicholson who is taking over from Christine as the Club’s Advertising Manager. It’s great to see regular Forum contributors coming forward to help run our Club. On your behalf I would like to thank them and every single volunteer who has helped in one way or another during the past year. May our Club grow from strength to strength through the coming years.
Liz Mills
President
