EVINGTON GARDEN CLUB

Matthew Biggs is passionate about gardens and gardeners. Writer, broadcaster and president of Evington Garden Club, he demonstrated this at his April meeting talk on British Back Gardens.

Not all gardens were to his taste. However, no garden should be criticised. Instead you should try to understand the creativity behind the planting. Ask questions, he says, find out where the plant comes from. Once he was lucky enough to visit the home of the giant water lily. The trees in the jungle were steaming and the anticipation added to the pleasure of seeing it in its natural habitat.

And Matthew emphasised that gardening should be a pleasure. Some took it to extremes and he described them as bonkers. One such lived in a tumbledown house and had a wonderful garden full of exotic plants. Others just enjoyed themselves spending their holidays collecting plants or had gardens built round a theme like the Wild West.

He suggested that we gardeners could help conservation by planting endangered species at the same time as using reliable standards as a backdrop.

Matthew concluded by saying gardening was therapy and we should all adopt gardening pace to improve the quality of our lives. Most of all enjoy it.

Margaret Young