Gloucester Community Garden guest speakers at Gloucester Garden Club

The mauve festooned wisteria under which we gathered was a magnificent site and the perfect venue for a spring meeting.

There was considerable discussion about the plan to plant koala friendly trees to celebrate the Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's reign, with the problem of finding a suitable site on public land still not settled.

An alternative suggestion from the local Parks and Gardens supervisor was to plant a beautiful deciduous conifer, a Taxodium, in an area of already existing deciduous trees, where a seat could be placed in the cosmos meadow under those trees.

When it came to a vote, the decision made, by a show of hands, was that we pursue both options, with the latter option to take place in the immediate future.

Our guest speakers for the morning were members of the Community Garden group, Megan Dewsnap, Terri Hardwick and Steve Robinson.

There are more than 700 community gardens across Australia and Gloucester's fairly new example is a credit to the enthusiasm and hard work of its members.

Terri demonstrated the method of setting up a wicking bed, of which the group now has 10, full of produce and neatly covered with protective mesh . This system makes the most economical use of water and nutrients.

Steve gave a very interesting talk on the making of compost in their well set up compost bays and later we all walked across the road to inspect the garden more closely.

This community garden, adjacent to the swimming pool and croquet courts, is open to anyone to wander in and seek answers to their questions. Volunteers are there regularly on Tuesday mornings to welcome visitors or more volunteers.

Our sincere thanks went to their group for coming to our meeting and opening our eyes to the potential of community gardens.

The cut flower competition was well supported with a beautiful display of spring flowers. First place, by popular vote, was awarded to David Marston's black flag Iris, second place went to Shirley Hazell's rare hippeastrum, with equal third to Roslyn McIntyre's echium Pride of Madeira, Gloria Noble's eupatorium Purple Mist Flower and Peter Hazell's soft cane dendrobium orchid.

The fruit and vegetable competition was won by Peter Hazell's near perfect large cauliflower, second went to Tessa Searle's blemish free lemon and third place to Sharyn Blanch's perfectly grown carrot.

The Lucky Door prize was won by our 'green thumb' committee member, Mandy Griffis, the membership draw went to Judy Holstein and there were several happy raffle prize winners.

The next meeting of the Garden Club will be held on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 at Kim and Kevin Arney's garden.