Mushrooms, Plant Fairs, GH Courses and all things October!
Posted:12 October 2014
Well, we like to keep busy at The Garden House and the past few weeks have certainly been VERY busy (and highly enjoyable!).
Our Design Your Own Garden: 6-session course, started on 1 October. The aim of this course is to give enthusiastic amateur designers and gardeners the basic skills, knowledge and confidence necessary to design or revamp their own gardens. Our two other autumn courses covering practical gardening skills are also underway – Gardening for Beginners and The Gardening Year. We’ll track all the activity over the next few weeks and keep you posted as to everyone’s progress! (Photo below of last year’s students)
On the weekend of 4th/5th October Great Dixter was the ‘go to’ destination for dedicated plant lovers (and ourselves of course!) as this renowned Kent garden opened its doors for the fifth year to leading nursery men and women from across Europe and UK, under the watchful eye of Dixter’s head gardener Fergus Garrett. Among the specialist nurseries was De Hessenhof from Holland, and we were delighted to catch a talk given by De Hessenhof’s owner and nurseryman Hans Kramer, an expert on perennials (video below).
Then yesterday, Saturday 11 October, saw a group of us trekking through the very wet Sussex undergrowth with fungi and foraging expert Geoff Dann! Having primed us the week before with his fascinating talk, Mushroom Magic, held at The Garden House (3 October), Geoff who is particularly knowledgeable on the more obscure edible species was brilliant and inspiring, helping us find and identify as many species of fungi as possible, and chatting about fungi and wild food in general.
Finally, to tie-in with all our funghi-related activity, professional botanical art tutor Leigh Ann Gale is holding a one-day botanical illustration workshop tomorrow Monday 13 October with a special focus on illustrating mushrooms – can’t wait to see everyone’s efforts!
Phew, and we’re only half way through the month!
NOTE: we also found this artist’s mushroom below so called as it has a really hard surface and can be used to draw on (as the image from americanmushrooms.com shows).
