Wisley visit by our VRV friends

[Maggi Young]

VRV = Flemish Rock Garden Society    http://www.vrvforum.be

Last year Luc Gilgemyn, well known in this Forum ( as are a great many of the VRV members!) began a thread in their Forum, introducing the  proposed visit to Wisley Garden for the day... by bus, for the VRV members and guests.
He began by tempting the members with photos he had taken there the previous year.

The project gathered momentum and soon a larger bus was ordered and the "mega" day trip was made last weekend.
The thread inthe VRV Forum begins here;  
http://www.vrvforum.be/forum/index.php?topic=194.0
and here;
http://www.vrvforum.be/forum/index.php?topic=194.msg11435#msg11435 the photos from the trip begin.... lots of them... a very good time was had by all, I am quite sure! Paul Cumbleton showed them round  and Frankie Wuulemans pictures show that the weather was dry.... the new crevice garden was looking  good, with some flowering already started in the new plantings. The brightest of these being the monocarpic , but brightly gorgeous, Androsace bulleyana.

Luc G. take up more photos, and Bert S....... and Kris de R.... so many folks you will know already!

Here is Kris' picture of Luc G. with Paul : http://www.vrvforum.be/forum/index.php?topic=194.msg11498#msg11498   and further on in that post there's a picture of the huge double decker bus the group needed for their trip!

Some of the photos are of plants that resonate in Scotland.... Luc G. has Corydalis 'Craigton Blue'
 (rather oddly being grown in a pot) in his introductory pictures and one of the first blue Meconopsis pictured from the visit on Saturday is M. 'Willie Duncan', named for the extremely popular Fife plantsman.......

The photos are all super and you will surely enjoy them, even if you cannot understand the text..... do please visit the VRV forum to get a flavour of this super Channel hopping day out and see the flowers at Wisley.  (except the bus went through the Channel Tunnel, of course.... but you know what I mean!)

[Luc Gilgemyn]

It feels like you've caught us with our hands in the Wisley (chocolate) cookie jar Maggi !!   

Thanks very much for posting the links and you're absolutely right, we had a great day !!!
You know, we are only a very small club (we welcomed our 90th member last week  ), but somehow we managed to get 64 people on that bus !  We're quite proud of that, and nobody seems to have regretted getting up so early in the morning (04.30 hrs or thereabouts).

Wisley certainly is worth the effort, every time again and Paul was his charming and knowledgeable self coming in especially to show us around ! (it was his saturday off)
We surely appreciated that !! 

We did use the channel tunnel to get accross this time but it doesn't make us feel less of a channel hopper... 

Thanks again for giving us this mention on this (The) Forum ! 

[Maggi Young]

Luc.... the fact that you got 64 folks to join the trip is something that is VERY worthy of comment and much praise. This shows how keen the VRV membership is, even though you are only a small number... at present. Such enthusiasm shows that the efforts you and our friends are putting into the VRV are really paying off and I hope that VRV will continue to go from strength to strength, growing all the time.
Of course, when their Club Committee arranges such exciting trips as this, it would be criminal if there was not a great response!

It makes a contrast with the numbers from say, the Aberdeen SRGC Group, taking the chance for our bus trip to the Dunblane Early Bulb Day ..... less than half your number from a membership of double... that's shocking, I think.  
Well done to the VRV, I say.... and it has been great to see all the pictures from Wisley, lokking super! Thanks!