The Scarborough & District Fuchsia Society was delighted to have Roger Burnett, the Scarborough Borough Council Parks & Countryside Services Manager as their guest speaker for their February monthly meeting. 
After the initial technical hitch and a quick dash to borrow another laptop computer, while Dave Edmond bravely filled in with some topical tips, Roger's PowerPoint presentation about Flower Shows went down a treat. Harrogate Autumn Show and the Tatton Park Horticultural Show were featured as well as stunning pictures of our own Annual Fuchsia Show last summer and the Europe in Bloom 2002 Gold Medal Winner, the village of Thorpe Salvin.
The story of Thorpe Salvin is quite remarkable. The village near Rotherham in South Yorkshire is a regular contender for best village in the Yorkshire in Bloom contest. However, it also enters the Entente Floral, the Europe in Bloom competition. The village which is actually smaller than Cayton raises around £15,000. This, as you can imagine, is converted into colour galore throughout the village, with stunning beds, fabulous tubs and naturally the residents themselves play ball and have their own garden looking immaculate. The village now resembles a picture postcard scene par excellence wherever you look and not surprisingly house prices have gone through the roof. If you like visiting Open Gardens keep your eyes out for this one, open to the public for one weekend only sometime in August.
Roger is in charge of the 2000 acres of parkland in the Scarborough region as well as being the mastermind behind Scarborough's floral display at various National Shows and the Garden Pride Exhibitions in Scarborough which have proved so successful. The Scarborough & District Fuchsia Society and other Horticultural Societies participate with a display at these Council shows as part of the community involvement in the project.
I, for one, have been most impressed by the innovation introduced and the progress made by the Borough Council and its Parks and Countryside Department since Roger took the helm and Scarborough sought some serious involvement with the Britain in Bloom campaign aided in this by his 'side-kick' Carolyn Jackson, Scarborough Council's Britain in Bloom marketing co-ordinator  How proud he must be then, having moved up through the ranks, to see Scarborough so colourful with the parks looking great again, the floral tubs and hanging baskets adding so much charm and another Garden Pride events eagerly anticipated by the residents. Askham Bryan trained, he started off at the Manor Road Nurseries as an apprentice gardener in 1974. Yes, as a 'pot lad', washing numerous pots, one of the worst jobs and hard work, but steadily working his way up and now as Manager mainly desk-bound. Looking around Scarborough parks no-one can have failed to notice the great strides forward that have been made these last few years and the greater involvement of the community. This has proved mutually beneficial, giving organisation like ourselves some welcome publicity and a higher profile but also, with so many
more people being involved in community projects and now taking an active interest in their surroundings, there is a marked decline in vandalism.
Presented with such enthusiasm it proved a most informative and entertaining evening and we are delighted to hear that we are going to see even more of Roger as he is about to enrol as a new member of the Society!

March saw the long awaited and welcome return of the one and only Ken Pilkington, the famous author and stalwart of British Fuchsia Society national shows. Ken, such a truly accomplished speaker and undoubtedly the most enthusiastic presenter on the circuit, held the audience spellbound with his fascinating thoughts on growing fuchsias in an entirely new way. As so often happens though Ken was more or less pushed into having a go at speaking. Treasurer at the time while the Secretary was on holiday some-one needed to talk about overwintering and he was nominated. Though extremely nervous at the start once he got going "they couldn't get me off the stage" and as they say the rest is history! Talks at other Societies followed and of course Ken has barely missed a BFS Show in the last 15 years now.
Multi-planting, a method researched and developed by Ken and now gaining many followers, is indeed a swift way to grow nice looking, sizeable plants which flower over an extended period. This is achieved by rooting and growing several cuttings in one pot instead of, as used to be the norm, one plant only per pot. Imagine, one plant having the growing tip removed and sprouting 6 branches sporting 4 blooms each, as opposed to the multi-planted fuchsia where say 10 plantlets in the pot, given the same treatment of that one stop, will sprout 60 branches and hundreds of flowers. It is, he stated, as nature intends plants to grow - they have a mechanism to gather others around to increase the survival rate. Growing the plants this way they also seem to shape themselves naturally to that elusive round which reduces the necessity of constantly having to turn plants to accomplish even growth.
Some reservations, like he dreaded botrytis, were swiftly brushed aside by Ken. "Botrytis, I don't get it". Wow!!! Ken obviously manages to get the watering and the growing atmosphere just right. Indeed, he advocates "careful watering - don't saturate". Easier said them done for most of us, unfortunately. Ken also spends a considerable time with his plants, removing  or trimming some of the larger leaves in the centre and stroking away the plantlets slightly over the sides of the pot which also lets air into the centre.
A big talking point on his rounds has been the change in root system this multipot growing seems to create. With one plant per pot the roots just run out of the pot or wrap round at the bottom. Multipotted plants apparently have a very dense well branched out rootsystem, without this going round in circles. A case of one  = I'm all on my own, 3 or more = we're in this together, let's bond!
Fascinating indeed, as is the way he takes his cuttings, as minute growing tips, of even size, fitting 7 to 10 in a 2½" pot and using coffee jars as propagators!
In this respect Ken had a real shock recently when suddenly the manufacturers decided the change to a round lid, which of course won't stand up - good job he has a good stockpile of the trusted old format. It has been said of some folks that they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth. In Ken's case this surely was some clippers in one hand to take the cuttings and the coffee jar, 'the magic propagator' in the other!
Another plus point Ken raised about the multi-planting method is that it gives winter interest.  Now the plants are being overwintered steadily growing, in the green, as opposed to being defoliated and rested and then coached into growth again (with fingers crossed that the plants sprout evenly!) with the traditional way. It was partly this depressing sight of seeing the brown twiggy structures in his greenhouse during the winter months that triggered the idea of multiplanting  and all year round foliage.  This makes fuchsia growing for Ken, who actually admits that he is not fussed about the flowers but just loves growing plants, a truly all-the-year round hobby!  And, it doesn't require a lot of expensive heat. He overwinters at 40°F by way of a 2 KW electric heater, with back up.  He even takes his cuttings without bottom heat, though that can take as long as two months before well rooted in winter but it achieves that sought after short jointed growth.
Ken always was a fine grower, a very successful exhibitor too, and the plants he had brought along to illustrate his talk certainly were shaping up extremely well,  sure to give a good show this summer, as, hopefully, will our own efforts as we endeavour to put in practice his good advice. It proved a most informative and very entertaining evening - another 'mission accomplished' for Ken, as many left the hall, eager to have a go themselves!
I certainly did, wasting no further time to create my very first multi-pots the very next day.  Been postponing it long enough!! Mixed success, though, mainly due to the inevitable, problem with botrytis, as when holding down a full-time job you just don't have the time to water quite as carefully as you should!! However, on the bright side some plants do look pretty good and the Show will hopefully provide proof of the pudding, with some cards!!  I will endeavour to give a full update of the adaptations I made (several experiments were carried out) early next year, in time for the new growing season.
Please note that full details of multipot growing can be found in Ken's book  'How to grow Fuchsias - A Practical Guide',  the Fuchsia Bible, which can be purchased from our bookstall and there is also a copy of the latest edition available from the Society library.

'Follow that', was not an easy brief, however,  we had found another gem and enjoyed another really good evening on 16 April when 'The Story of Helmsley Walled Garden' was presented by the Head Gardener, Paul Radcliffe.
Set against the backdrop of Helmsley Castle the five acre garden now offers its many visitors a large array of unusual varieties of flowers, vegetables and herbs, including 50 varieties of Heritage Yorkshire apples. The walled garden, employing only 3 full-time gardeners, has the support of an enthusiastic group of volunteers and also features the British Clematis Society's National Display Garden, greenhouses and craft workshops.  Paul himself, the head gardener, also doubles up as "Managing Director and toilet cleaner". Hard to imagine that in 1994 the site was just a wilderness with neglected greenhouses and in fact used by locals as a rubbish dump. It proved a fascinating account of how Alison Ticehurst, the wife of the local doctor and frustrated gardener,  with unfailing enthusiasm motivated a team of hardworking volunteers to tackle this massive project to transform it into one of Yorkshire's prime tourist attractions.  It certainly proved a tremendous struggle against the weeds in the early years of the redevelopment project and it was initially funded by the sale of her family home! This spirit is still displayed by Paul, whose talks now help fund the project, which is also supplemented by grants and now through plant sales and entry fees is just about paying for itself. The Walled Garden is a charity garden, open to the public, but it is also used to provide horticultural therapy for disadvantaged and disabled people and is a favourite school trip destination.
Presented with such great enthusiasm by Paul and fully illustrated with slides it proved a very entertaining evening indeed!
Plans are afoot to organise a trip to the walled garden sometime next summer and for those eager to get a glimpse now, when browsing on the internet take a look at www.helmsleywalledgarden.co.uk.

For our May meeting Peter Staveley presented a talk entitled 'Standards My Way'. Peter, from Newby, winner of many prizes in the standard classes at our annual fuchsia shows enlightened us how to grow standard fuchsias. Peter had brought along a selection of whips and young plants and  demonstrated how to shape the heads, at times cutting back very hard indeed!! He reckons it takes  around three years to attain a real good deep head, fit for the show bench.
Many helpful tips, from selecting the right, upright growing, cultivars, obtaining the elusive straight stems to applying the finishing touches by shaping the head followed. Peter too is frustrated at times with cultivars that prematurely form buds instead, as desired, continuing to grow on. He advocates just removing the flowers and keep going.
What amazed us most of all though, was the unproportionally small pot his half standards were growing in, which, as Peter explained, is part of the plan to keep the head compact. Best tip of the night for me, something I had definitely not heard before, was to use Velcro to tie the stems to the stakes. Sounds really good, must try that!
After the interval members questions were expertly dealt with and the Society's first bring and buy plant stall also proved pretty popular.
Peter is now our new vice-president and can usually be found at our annual show in the vicinity of the standard section, willing to answer any further questions for you.