The Wellbeing Benefits of Gardening are just one of many topics West Bergholt Gardeners hope to cover. Last month Colchester Hospital opened their Wellbeing Garden designed by a top RHS designer. Are you passionate about gardening? If so, why not join them and dive into a world of horticultural wonders! They host a variety of engaging speakers who cover a wide range of fascinating topics.
Become a member for just £25 a year, or simply drop in for the talks that pique your interest at £5 per evening. Payments can be made by card or cash.
Meeting Schedule
We gather on the third Monday of each month from September to December and February to May. Doors open at 7:15 PM for a 7:30 PM start.
It doesn’t matter whether it is small, large, tidy (or even not so tidy), if you are proud of your garden, the Gardeners Association (WBGA) would love to hear from you.
This year their Open Gardens event is taking place on Sunday 9th June. The event is always popular (nearly 1,000 visitors in 2022) & this year, its’ chosen charities are:
WBGA could really do with a few more gardens to show off this year. If you think your garden may be of interest, contact WBGA by email – [email protected] for further information. June seems a long way off, but WBGA have to get programmes printed in advance so they would love to hear from you as soon as possible.
Talking of whom, we have had a meeting to discuss Speaker and subject ideas for our next season from this September through to May 2024. I know it sounds a long way off as we’ve only just jumped into 2023 but Speakers are rapidly becoming booked up! We hope we shall do our best for you all and make choices that will enthuse and interest you in anything horticultural!
After the delay of two years the Open Gardens 2022 Event finally took place on Sunday, 12th June. Organised by the Gardeners Club, eleven generous owners, together with the allotment holders, opened their beautiful gardens or vegetable plots to almost a thousand visitors (lots of photos to view on the West Bergholt Hub).
Busy Hub
The weather was fine and sunny and the village was buzzing as people walked between the various sites. The Orpen Hall was the busy central hub with the plant stall and refreshments. It proved to be so popular that preserves sold out and most of the plants and the supply of cakes had to be topped up on more than a few occasions!
Arrangements for the 2022 Village Open Gardens Event have now been finalised. There will be 10 varied, interesting gardens and the Allotments open to view this year. The gardens will be open between 11 am & 5:30 pm on 12th June.
Buy your tickets now…
Entry to the gardens will be by Programme (£5 per adult/children free). Until 11th June they will be on sale at:
If you are proud of it, you might want to consider adding it to this year’s Open Gardens. The Gardeners Association are now working to finalise details for the event. Contact [email protected] to find out more.
Entry by programme
Programmes for entry to all the gardens and the allotments will be on sale beforehand in shops and businesses; on the day also at the Orpen Hall. The Gardeners Association also plan to have a stall selling plants in the Hall on the day; they would welcome plant contributions to sell.
Writing this article I couldn’t, first of all, decide if it should be about Cherry Trees, Oak Trees, Pear Trees or Bluebells; it transpired they all had their part to play along with many others. The Cherry trees graced Orpen Hall for decades; however, as they had become elderly and diseased, they had to be removed last year.
West Bergholt Gardeners didn’t meet in January so the first meeting of 2022 on 21st February has speaker Neil Ludmon talking about the “History of the use of Herbaceous Perennials. On 21st March they will be learning of “Current Trends in Garden Design” from Steven Digby.
Their trips out have always been popular so this year they have provisionally booked a self drive visit to Utling Wick in September and coach trips to East Rushton in July and RHS Hyde Hall “Glow” in November. Guests are welcome to join them on these visits.
Further meetings to take place at 7.30 pm in the Orpen Hall will be:
The Gardeners 2021-22 Programme Started in Wrabness
Despite being unable to meet up since early 2020 the Gardeners’ Club have tried to keep in touch with members; they have done this via email newsletters and also through a self drive visit to Strandlands, Wrabness. Strandlands is an NGS garden; the visit gave them a chance to meet in the lovely setting of an unique, natural garden overlooking the estuary. They also had a stall at the Village Fete in July to publicise the group and to attract new members. They reassured visitors that they are a very informal and friendly club of enthusiastic amateurs; their joint ambition being to gain inspiration and advice from interesting and experienced speakers.
Now that Autumn is rapidly approaching, with shorter days and cooler weather and with the ending of social gathering restrictions we plan to resume monthly meetings from September. They have already booked a full programme of speakers for 2021/2022 dependent upon Covid regulations. All being well, they look forward to being back in the Orpen Hall on Monday, 20th September at 7.30 pm. They look forward to welcoming existing and new members. The full programme will be available at that meeting; it will include a very short AGM and a talk by Roger Pawsey, a rose grower.
After that, on 18th October, Richard Grant, Head Gardener from Madingley Hall, Cambridge will be their speaker. In November they will be learning how to make a Christmas Wreath and they will finish the year with their annual Christmas Quiz evening in December.
This is a more complete update of an earlier Open Gardens post with new material from the allotments; thanks to Peter Noakes for putting these collages together.
The West Bergholt Open Gardens has been a biennial event since 2014 and has raised thousands of pounds for local charities. This year it didn’t happen for obvious reasons, but the plan is it will return next year. We would like to share a few photos of the gardens & allotments that were due to be open on 28th June. Hopefully you will find them uplifting and will encourage you to join in next year. Gardens and donkeys are further down so keep scrolling!