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.

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.

Homeyards Dinner

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

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.

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!

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

No,it’s not a real cow!

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?

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.