November guest speaker report

Our speaker this month was Mark Ashton who works at Pheasant Acre Plants. This local nursery, who specialise in dahlias, gladioli and spring bulbs, attends many RHS shows and has won an impressive amount of gold medals over the years.

Mark`s talk was entitled ` A trip around the shows` and he gave us an insight into the preparation and setting up of the magnificent displays they produce at each show. Thousands of stems are grown and then transported to the venues in vans or lately, a big lorry! The stands can take several
days to set up, with Mark sleeping overnight in the van. The standard of the displays required by the RHS is very high and the slides Mark showed us proved that they were very worthy winners of their gold medals.

When we attend shows and see all the impressive displays by all the nurseries, we probably don`t think too much about how they get to that final stage so it was interesting to see what goes on in the background, and just how much work is involved in creating these beautiful displays for us to
enjoy.

Many thanks to Mark, and to everyone who attended.