UNUSUAL AND LONG BLOOMING GARDEN PLANTS

PLANT HUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA
Part I: Namaqualand and The Cape
-desert and fynbos-

PLANT HUNTING IN SOUTH AFRICA
Part II: Lesutho and the Drakensberg
-the high mountain flora-

NEW PLANT INTRODUCTIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

GROWING A NURSERY FROM SEED
-how Special Plants began-

CONSERVATORY PLANTS
-a romance-

DERELICT HILL FARM TO GARDEN
-in a year or two or three-

GRAVEL GARDENING
- low maintenance, drought tolerant plants-

SUMMER FLOWERS FROM SEED
- weird and wonderful annuals and biennials-

PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES
- growing things you shouldn’t-

All talks given by Derry Watkins, author of The Complete Greenhouse Book and Sunspaces. For the last twenty years she has run a small nursery called Special Plants. In 1993 she won a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship to spend three months in South Africa looking for new plants to introduce into horticulture in England. In 1995 she went back, seed collecting in the Drakensberg. And in 2009, back again for more plant adventures.

In 1996 she and her husband bought a derelict barn to convert into a house, and they are gradually converting the fields into a garden (now open for the NGS and by appointment for groups). In 1999 she won a silver medal for her black and white exhibit at the Chelsea Flower Show. Her monthly articles on Plant Focus were featured in Gardens Illustrated in 2003. She teaches at the English Gardening School.

She will bring plants for sale appropriate to the lecture involved.

Group visits to the nursery and garden are also welcome.