TRIP REPORT : Dench garden weeding workbee, Newlands

 Saturday :   28 October 2006

It’s always a treat to work in a native garden of such distinction as this one in the misty heights of Newlands.   The day was fine and we worked with admiration, determination, and as much precision as we could muster, to ensure no treasures were rooted out by mistake.   For instance, minute seedlings of “Geranium Von” whose forebears hitch-hiked from the wild, into a pot in the Druce garden years ago, are now very much at home in the Dench garden, their coppery foliage unmistakable amongst the alpines.   A rogue (Dryopteris filix-mas) fern masquerading as Pneumatopteris pennigera was sternly ushered into the bin, and small trackside weeds which had germinated in the wet Spring were relentlessly removed.   Later we indulged in the usual botanical buzz of conversation around a delicious morning tea.

Participants : Arnold and Ruth Dench (co-leaders), Robin and Bryan Halliday, Chris Horne, Rodney Lewington, Elena Machin, Phil Parnell, Barbara Mitcalfe (scribe), Darea Sherratt, Carol West.