Well autumn is well and truly here and, as I write this, the Society is looking forward to the first talk in its Speaker Programme on Wednesday 4 October, when Ben Smith of the Royal Horticultural Society will be inspiring us with ’30 years of an English garden’.
We also had another fantastic Autumn Show with friends and neighbours from Dedham and further afield sharing the best of what they’ve grown this year. It was wonderful to see familiar faces who – through the range of flowers and vegetables they grow, as well as their skills at cooking, photography and flower arranging – help fill the tables with glorious colour and scent.
Autumn is our dahlia show (among other flowers of course) and among the five categories, people entered some incredible flowers. The single decorative class always attracts a great range of blooms, especially the giants like Café au Lait or Spartacus, but it can be a more challenging class as it’s easy to confuse other types of dahlia for decorative.
Anyone can grow dahlias and most will be very happy in pots. You can pick up a tuber cheaply from garden centres or online and, once the frosts are passed, plonk it into the ground so the top is just below the surface. Use some substantial compost if you are using a pot and ideally replace it each year. They are hungry plants so worth feeding regularly if you’re growing in pots for good flowering. Then just snip off a bloom (or several) when it’s show time! Search ‘dahlia’ on our website for a couple of articles explaining the different types.
Class 11 was another popular class for exhibitors keen to show five stems of hardy perennials in a vase. People entered with five of the same perennial, alstroemeria for instance, and arrangement of five different kinds or a mix. On the table, they made for a display as good as those we saw in the flower arranging classes.
Have a look at your garden or containers and think about which plants come back year after year. Some may die back over winter (herbaceous perennials) and some may stay in leaf, but if they’re in flower in September then you should consider them for this class.
Our rose classes always attract a lot of entrants and there’s room for a rose in every border, patio or balcony container. There were some fantastic roses for fragrance – the winner, quite small but kicking out a powerful scent that rivalled the other bigger options – and the whole table looked spectacular.
It looked like it’s been a good year for apples, plums and raspberries (after most suffered in the very hot summer last year), as well as beetroot to judge by the quality of entries. While there are raspberries available now that you can grow in pots, we’ll also accept hedgerow varieties of blackberries – so why not think about any you’ve seen while out and about and enter those.
Entering the show isn’t just about getting a trophy (which can just be a numbers game – the more classes you enter the greater your chance at getting a trophy); there’s also a thrill to getting a first, second or third in a particular class. I still save those cards as a little record of my growing success (and it’s a handy conversation starter for tea with my mum). Having said that, congratulations to our cup winners this year on your huge achievement and thank you for taking part and helping us make another great show.
At the end of the day, whether you are a member of Dedham’s Horticultural Society or not, our shows are very much community affairs. It’s free to exhibit in any class and as many classes as you like, and we’d love to see more people have a go and come along to look at the displays and catch up with friends and neighbours over a drink.
Dedham Horticultural Society 