This was very evident at the home of Dot and Ray Harris, we enjoyed the garden around their home on the high bank overlooking the Barrington River. They moved into their new home in 2016 so it is a very young garden, in a bad frost area, but Dot has great plans for the future.

Our guest speaker this month was local horticulturist Rob Willis from Woodside Plants, who gave a very interesting talk on the hi reactive type of clay soils in this area and the need for planning and correct soil preparation in your garden. He spoke about the use of plenty of gypsum with compost and manures, planting up on mounds above the ground and above the clay level, heavy mulching with chunky mulch and the use of crusher dust with gypsum and woodchips for deep planting. Once again, we appreciated Robs useful information and a demonstration of how to correctly plant the new Ruby red crepe myrtle tree at the entrance to the garden.

The next meeting has been brought forward one week to Wednesday, April 18 at 10am due to our usual meeting day falling on Anzac Day. Kim and Kevin Arney have invited us to their new garden at 38a Moonlight Circuit. Please bring the usual chair, mug and morning tea plate to share, items for the trading table and flower and vege. competitions, Show and Tell items, etc and if anyone has any little plants which they would like to bring along to plant in Kims new garden, then she would be delighted to have your contribution.

There are several Garden events coming up which will be of interest to gardeners and which could go into your diaries now:-

The 2018 Tidy Towns Assessment team will be in Gloucester during the first week in October so some thought as to how you can present a tidy, bright and inviting town may well go towards Gloucester being very successful again in this annual event.

The inaugural Garden Expo. in Gloucester, in conjunction with Destination Gloucester and coinciding with International Gardening Week, will be held here on the weekend of October 13 14, 2018 with six local gardens open for show and the main Market Day to be held in Billabong Park on Saturday, October 13. Contributions towards our Clubs Plant Stall and helpers over the weekend will be much appreciated.

Garden Clubs of Australia Zone Friendship Day will be hosted by Gloucester Club this year in July and once again, we will be running a Trading Table so your contributions will be most acceptable. The G.C.A. Convention in 2019 will be held on Norfolk Island between 14-18 October, at a cost of $1,100 pp which includes flights and accommodation perhaps something to start saving for!

The garden at Narraweema in Gloucester Hospital grounds remains one of our Clubs ongoing projects and volunteers for this months maintenance are Elaine Maslen and Bruce Barnes. We are looking for donations of bulbs to plant in this garden if you any to spare, please give them to Bruce Barnes beforehand he might need to refrigerate them for a period before planting.

Margaret Blamires interesting list of What to do in your Garden in April reminded us that there is always something to be done in the garden, but with the better conditions now we are all more inclined to go outside and get started. Margaret suggested that we should only choose Daffodil bulbs which flower before the end of August, due to our local soil temperatures and conditions, otherwise you might well find that you will get very few flowers from your bulbs - a useful tip for those of us who imagine that we live in UK and expect a lovely mass of daffodils in our gardens in spring.

The competition winners this month were:

Fruit and Veggies 1st Frank Beggs for a large pear, 2nd Anne Williamson with a very large kumera, 3rd Dianne Relf with beetroot.

Flowers 1st Pearl Beggs with a red gladioli, 2nd Anne Williamson with a pretty pink Fairy Rose, 3rd Peter Hazelwood with a white cattleya orchid.

The lucky door winner was Keith Franks, Members Draw was Mercy Borrodale, who was absent and therefore the prize jackpots to next month and the Raffle winners were Joan Harwood, Roslyn McIntyre, Bruce Barnes, Lyn Hebblewhite and Col Martin.

We welcome new members Jenny Wardle and Margaret Randall to our Club new members, friends and visitors are always welcome. We look forward to seeing everyone at the new meeting 10 am.