What a turnout! As well as the committee, there was an audience of 40 other members for our AGM in February – lovely to see so many, that’s well over half the membership.
The club is in a financially sound position, and we have managed to give £800 in donations to local charities during the year.
We said goodbye to Jill Rowlinson from the committee, who has been serving since the club’s inception in 2008 and she was presented with some gifts as a mark of our appreciation for all she has done in that time.
After the business part of the evening, we were entertained by Tony Davis from A Blackbird Sang who told us about the setting up of the company, how it has grown into its current position of regular contributor to Chelsea, Malvern and other well-known shows, as well as supplying produce for sale in all the best outlets!
Lauren Daly also gave us an interesting update of the latest research being done at the Oxford Botanic Garden.
They are look at Orabanche or broomrapes, parasitic plants with no chlorophyl that are entirely dependent on their hosts. They grow on broom, gorse and ivy primarily in the UK, with Orabanche hedera being quite common in Oxfordshire. They only appear in June, living mostly underground and are very little understood which is why the OBG is so interested in them!