The Friends’ AGM will commence at 10.00am in the Dorothy Fox Centre in the Botanical Gardens and is open to all members. Simon Olpin will deliver his talk following the formal part of the meeting.

From his earliest years Simon had a fascination and love of nature and living things; his parents were keen gardeners and he took an interest in gardening as he grew up in the beautiful Slad Valley in South Gloucestershire. He established his first garden in Cambridge in the late 70’s and 80’s and grew vegetables and flowers, but quite soon became more interested in exotic plants particularly bamboos and palms.

On moving to Sheffield in1987 Simon began to slowly develop an exotic suburban garden using a range of tender and hardy plants. Over the years through trial and error, many disappointments and some successes he established a predominantly hardy “subtropical” garden in Sheffield using a range of plants including palms, bamboos, sheffleras and tree ferns, with more recent additions of magnolias and camellias.

Simon has opened his garden under the National Garden Scheme by pre arranged appointment and the garden has subsequently attracted considerable media interest.

Simon is a retired NHS consultant clinical biochemist in inherited metabolic disease.