TRIP REPORT : Dench Garden weeding

Saturday 20 October 2007

There are always delights to be savoured in this special garden where Arnold and Ruth have toiled for decades.   Their skill and perseverance are evident throughout, and 17 pairs of busy BotSoc hands worked with a will, to show their appreciation.   One specimen I particularly noted at this workbee was Leucogenes neglecta in full flower.   The only other time I have seen this species was in the wild, in Marlborough in the 80s, when it was still only tag-named.   These and other treasures are a reward for those visiting the Dench garden, an ideal place to be to learn plants outside one’s normal range.   While Dave and Barbara struggled mightily to remove a large, rogue, tuber laddder fern, others sawed off dead branches, or meticulously weeded swards of Leptinella spp. or painstakingly released tussocks from relentlessly-invading velt grass, all this, while catching up on botanical / BotSoc news.

Participants :   Bev Abbott, Barbara Clark, Arnold and Ruth Dench (leaders), Bryan Halliday, Dave Holey, Chris Horne, Rodney Lewington, Alena Machin, Barbara Mitcalfe, (scribe), Phil Parnell, Mick Parsons, Darea Sherratt, Robyn Smith, Sunita Singh, Julia Stace, Carol West.