Join us for what promises to be a splendid online lecture on Tuesday (2 November), with three speakers from Wessex Archaeology on 'Plants, Pleasure and Power' - sharing the information and insights they have gleaned from excavating the moat and Elizabethan garden at Coleshill Hall.

We are saddened to share news of the death of our Chair, Jill Thompson. She passed away peacefully at St Luke’s Hospice during the night of 23 October.

Join us Tuesday lunchtime (28th October) for one of our public guided tours of the Gardens. For October our special focus will be on emerging Autumn leaf colour.

We have started cautiously trialling some live events in the Dorothy Fox Education Centre. The first face-to-face lecture we have hosted for 18 months was for Heritage Open Days in September.

Thanks to Dr Sylvia Travers for a great online lecture on the building of RHS Bridgewater. A recording of the lecture is now available in the password-protected Friends Area of the website, and includes images of the design plans for the vast walled garden and photos of how the designs have turned out.

The October edition of our regular newsletter News Shoots is now available to view in the password-protected Friends Area of the website. It has information on upcoming events (online and increasingly in person), a new plant recycling scheme, our plant of the month, and news of a change in leadership for the Friends.

Join us for our next online talk on Tuesday 19th October with Dr Sylvia Travers, on ‘The building of Bridgewater: breathing new life into old walls’. Sylvia is Team Leader for the Inner Walled Garden at RHS Bridgewater.

We’re delighted to report that the pavilions in the Gardens reopened on 5 October, after being closed more-or-less throughout the pandemic.

The recording of this week’s lecture on bulbs for year-round colour is now available to view in the password-protected Friends Area of the website.

Our next online lecture is on Tuesday 5th October at 10.30. Join Gail & John Summerfield of Westshores Nursery in Lincolnshire, who will explain how versatile and adaptable bulbs can be. They’ll be able to suggest bulbs for every month of the year.

Many thanks to Trisha, expert propagator and Friend of the Gardens, for stepping in at short notice and providing a lively and informative talk on the history and origin of many garden plants.

The planned lecture by Advolly Richmond on Tuesday 21 September has been postponed. So instead we are pleased to welcome Trisha Kohn to our lecture programme. Trisha will give an introduction to the origins of some of our garden plants.

We’re currently (September 2021) looking for a new Chair for the Friends, to work with an experienced and supportive Executive Committee.

We’re running two events this year for Heritage Open Days, both linked with our partner site at Sheffield General Cemetery.

Thanks to young horticulturalist James Miller for his talk on establishing a new Astilbe collection at the RHS garden at Wisley. A copy of the recording is now available to watch on the password-protected Friends Area of the website.