chairman's annual report

Despite lockdowns over the past year, the Titchfield Gardeners Club have managed to carry out a full programme of monthly meetings and visits. However we did take the decision to cancel our January quiz because of Covid cases in the village.

In lockdown, six monthly meetings have been delivered by Zoom and when not in lockdown, we have also been able to meet in our new venue at the Parish Rooms. In April, Marco Bartolini gave us a grand tour of Champion trees in Sir Harold Hillier Gardens arboretum where many of the trees were the only specimens in the UK. We also visited Matthew Soper's Carnivorous Plant Nursery on a lovely summers evening in August. Matthew has won 21 consecutive Gold medals at Chelsea Flower Shows and since our previous visit, he has expanded his greenhouses and many of us went home with a few specimens. Our annual visit to RHS Wisley was well supported. Thanks to Sue and Simon Edgington for checking us all in.

The excellent Autumn Show had a number of new members exhibiting for the first time and it was lovely to see trophies distributed to both old and new members. The feedback from judges was excellent. One or two exotic items that were exhibited caused the judges to scratch their heads as they had never seen or heard of them before!

Thanks to Steve Nash, the Club's Facebook pages had had some stunning photos throughout the year from vegetables of all shapes and sizes, fantastic and exotic pot plants as well as Jan Davie's bottles of Elderflower Cordial which looked mouthwatering.

In November, the club spent two Saturday mornings planting spring bulbs in Barry's Meadow and Seb Olway, the Deputy Head of Titchfield Primary School came along with children to help us plant them. While planting, we had visits from Connie and Geoff Hockley. The Earl of Southampton's Trust also provided us with tea and coffee from Daisy B's.

We finished our year with an excellent Skittles evening at the Crofton, the winners being our Vice Chairman Steve's team.

Thanks to all our members for supporting the club over the last year and also thanks to the Committee who have done a sterling job despite lockdowns. Lastly, Thank You to you our members who have been so supportive and understanding over the past year.

Keep Gardening!