Welcome to FoSBG Blog

Welcome to the friends of Shaldon Botanical Gardens Blog.

The commitee of FoSBG hopes to use the Blog to communicate with members of the Friends and others interested in the Gardens or in Shaldon generally.

The Blog will include information about Homeyards, our plans for development of the gardens, and the progress we are making.  It will also pass on details of events and opportunities for you to get involved.

Communication is a two way street, and we hope that you will take advantage of the comments facility included  with each post to let us know your thoughts, views and opinions about what we are doing, and of course any ideas of your own for the gardens.

Midsummer Picnic 2011

After a distinctly unsettled week of weather, Saturday 25th June turned out to be a sunny hot day in Shaldon, perfect for the Friends 2011 Picnic in the Gardens.Once again (and in spite of last years dreadful weather for the event) more than 200 people, many of them suitably attired in 30’s dress, turned up with their marquees and picnic baskets for an evening of entertainment and fun around the castle.

Entertainment was provided once again by “Speakeasy”, joined this year by “Kit Hillbillies” and compere for the evening Elphic the Clown.  The beautiful evening also encouraged the guests to make their own fun, and unscheduled entertainment was provided by the ‘flappers’ and their dance routines.  As the evening wore on more people joined in so that the pathway from the castle was full of couples dancing to the music of “Speakeasy”.

Overall the evening was hugely enjoyable – apparently one marquee was still partying at 2am!  The event also raised some very useful funds for the Friends to help with the continuing development and improvement of the Gardens.  Many thanks to Alec Colyer and his hard working team for organising and staging the event again this year.  Of course before the site was even cleared up on Sunday morning the ideas for next year’s event are flying around.

Some pictures of the event can be found here.

Midsummer Picnic

Spring 2011

Following an exceptionally hard winter for Devon, the gardens recovered with a beautiful spring.  Early in the season a lot of work was carried out by the Teignbridge Green Spaces team on the rill in an attempt to make the whole length leak free.  Not entirely successful unfortunately, but the rill has flowed  on a number of occasions. 

The long awaited planting of the pond and rill area was also completed, and the results promise to be quite spectacular when the plants become established.

Some pictures of spring in the gardens can be seen here.

Open for Dinner at the Castle

Another first for the Gardens.  Dinner within the ruined castle  for 1 night only
6th November 2010, 7.30-10.30pm with “Open for Dinner”.

Homeyards Dinner

Aturfuqil’s Shaldon Available November 2010, £9.99

What do you do with a Liqufruta fortune?
Well, Maria Homeyard completely
transformed Shaldon during the 1930s,
a story that hasn’t been told until now.
This 70 page A5 book will include historic
photographs, revealing documents and
other illustrations. By subscribing to the
book you will help to ensure its publication
and your name will be printed at the back
of the book. All funds raised from the sale
of the book will go directly to the Friends
of Shaldon Botanical Gardens.

To reserve your copy please complete the form below and send it with a cheque for £9.99 made out to Friends of Shaldon Botanical Gardens at:
Friends of Shaldon Botanical Gardens, 12 Dagmar Street, Shaldon, Devon TQ14 0DU. A receipt for your reserved copy will be sent.

or download the pdf  Homeyard Subscription Request

Autumn 2010

The Picnic in the Gardens was a huge success. Though the skies  threatened it was dry during the day while Alec Collyer and his crew rigged up marquees and lighting. Some came early to set up their gazebos while other picnickers were still arriving as the entertainment got underway. With the fire burning in the hearth and a colourful exhibition of paintings by the Shaldon Art Group the Castle came alive and as night fell the stunning lighting of the building and surrounds made for a magical ambiance. Thanks must go to Alec Collyer for his inspiration, to Glynn at the Post Office and Steve at the Newsagents for selling tickets and to all whose efforts contributed to this very special event.

The success of the Picnic has prompted the Friends Committee to re-think priorities. The Castle offers the potential to act as a base and focal point for a variety of activities. So the Torquay Road gate will have to wait, a roof for the Castle is to be our next major fund raising target. Architects are looking at possibilities and we hope to get some costs for the project soon.

A small source of funding will hopefully come from sales of the forthcoming book – ARTUFUQIL’S SHALDON. Using the Liqufruta fortune Maria Homeyard doubled the size of Shaldon in 10 years. The story behind the creation of her garden and the building of her stylish houses during the depression years has never really being pieced together until now. There are Subscription Request forms at the newsagents and the PO as pre-orders will help to enable the publication. The book is due out in November and will be on sale locally with profits going to The Friends.

The spring plantings below the Pond and the Katsura tree have just about survived the dry summer. This autumn the long promised plantings in the area above the Pond will go in. Included in the scheme will be some tree ferns, one rescued by Andre Waring and the others bought with a cheque for £90 kindly donated to the Gardens by the Shaldon and Ringmore WI. Funds raised at the Picnic in the Gardens will help to pay for a team to get the planting done as the Volunteer Work Days are not really sufficiently well attended to achieve this.

Aboriculturalist Adrian Dumont appeared out of the blue one Volunteer Sunday and has since been giving thought to the Garden’s trees. He has written up descriptive details for some of the Garden’s star trees and funding permitting, it is hoped to get some plaques up beside each to inform people better about what we actually have. He has exciting plans, but first trees need to come down. If trees were to come down, is there any one out there that would be interested in collecting the timber for burning? If so, phone Lisa on 01626 873562.

Earlier in the year Nia Pearson collected a huge quantity of daffodil bulbs that were being discarded. Please come along to the Volunteer Work Day on Sunday 14^th November to help plant sacks full of daffs (any extras you happen to have would be welcome of course) either side of the path beside the Allotments leading up from Broadlands.

Picnic in the Gardens – 21st August 2010

The rain that had been hanging around for most of the previous week did nothing to dampen the success of Picnic in the Gardens – the first major fundraising event organised in the Gardens by the Friends. The Castle was the backdrop to a magical event that attracted more than 250 “guests”.

The evening was hosted hilariously by Circus Besurkus, and featured entertainment by jazz band Speakeasy and classical guitarist Alison Smith. Dee Holdsworth organised an exhibition of paintings by Shaldon artists in the castle, Alec Collyer proved to be an exceptional salesman for the raffle, and a picture donated by the artist Dee Holdsworth was sold in a nailbiting auction.

As well as an enjoyable evening, the event provided more than £1800 to be used by the Friends in maintaining and improving the Gardens. Thanks to Alec Collyer and his team for organising the event, and hoping that there will be many more in the future!

TRAIL 2010 in Shaldon

TRAIL (Recycled Art in the Landscape) once again placed exhibits in the  Gardens this year. The exhibits attract a lot of additional visitors to the Gardens throughout the summer, as well as providing a fascinating diversion for local residents and regular visitors.

The 2010 TRAIL exhibits in the Gardens and elsewhere in Shaldon can be seen here.

No,it’s not a real cow!

June in the Gardens

The plants have gone in below the pond and given time, and enough water this summer, should grow into a very lush shady bank. We finally have a mains water connection to the pond so watering should be easy.

Not so easy for the Katsura (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) planted at the Allotments end of the Gardens. It’s very sensitive to drought so a black bucket has been put in the greenery to the left as you go down the steps to the pond in case anyone would care to carry a bucketful of pond water over to it. The Katsura leaves are particularly colourful in autumn and have a scent reminiscent of burnt brown sugar.

The House Martins and the Lesser Horseshoe Bats are back at The Gardeners Hut, their summer maternity roost. The squealing young House Martins can be heard during the day and at dusk the bats can be seen making their tentative forwards and backwards motion just in front of the Hut before setting off to forage, behaviour typical of Lesser Horseshoes.

Hopefully the hardware on the temporary gate placed at the new pavement entry will have been improved by July! Meanwhile The Friends have decided that relocating the old gate is not viable and are seeking designers of new oak gates suitable for that location. We plan to exhibit the design options and then seek funding from suitable sources.

We’ve long thought the Castle would make an ideal backdrop for a dramatic or musical event and this year Alec Collyer is kindly helping the Friends to stage the Picnic in the Gardens. The July edition of the Parish News has a full page advertising the details of the event. Fingers crossed for a fine summers evening!

The second Sunday in the month volunteers have recently cleared out ‘Mother Gum’s Cave’ revealing the stone floor.

There is a very large stone that once acted as a seat beside the stone table, is there any chance we could muster a team of tough volunteers to heave the stone back into position?

Progress on the pond and rill restoration

Work on restoration of the Pond and Rill at Homeyards Botanical Gardens is finally underway. The work, funded by Investing in Devon, involves bringing water and electricity into the Gardens and is employing specialist firm Aquascapes to inspect and repair the ponds and rill and create a pumped circulating water system up a steep rise of about 12m.

For many years this water feature was neglected and became overgrown but the Friends of Shaldon Botanical Gardens, on a succession of Volunteer Work Days, have gradually cleared the area to reveal the rill with its 3 smaller ponds, paths, bridges and rockeries. The quality of workmanship in the stonework has impressed all who have looked over the system and is testament to the planning of landscape designer William Sears and the teams of workers who hauled the stones into place in the early 1930’s.

This has been the ideal time of year to work on the ponds and surrounding area, before the weather gets too cold and frogs, newts and toads start hibernating. With all the clearance that has gone on they won’t find this area quite as leafy as usual and will have to look for other spots nearby. However, in spring 2010, with the restoration complete, the Friends plan to help the Teignbridge Green Spaces department implement an easily managed planting scheme for the area. The final Volunteer Sunday of the year on 13^th December is time for the annual pond clearance session. Come along between 10am and 3pm, gloves, wellies, pond dipping equipment, and bring along a potato or two wrapped in foil – we’ll get a bonfire going.