this month's flower
Edgworth and District Horticultural Society
E
H
S



SPRING EVENING VISIT - 15th MAY 2013



MYERSCOUGH COLLEGE GARDEN



After a day of rain and chilly winds, 45 members of the Society arrived at Myerscough College with a blue sky to welcome us.

The College is open seven days a week and visitors can enjoy not only the garden centre shop but can wander around the exhibition flower beds and enjoy a cuppa at the café overlooking the expansive lawns and gardens.

We met in the shop which sells a wide range of plants, bird seed and useful garden tools. Our guide for the evening was college lecturer, Robert Hughes, due to retire from the college this year and who had been a student from the college’s opening from 1968 – 1969 and could remember planting many of the mature trees surrounding the gardens.

Myerscough College Garden & Bob Hughes
 


We moved on from the garden centre shop passing through the tropical greenhouse, an aviary and a greenhouse displaying a wide variety of potted plants and succulents. 

Finally we came to the perfect lawns with a handy notice board and outline map of the gardens entitled ‘Plant World’ showing the variety of borders on show such as chalk tolerant, acid loving and including a national collection of Eryrigiums. There were hardy fuchsias and mature borders all cared for by the students.

Myerscough College Sales Area



A packed bed of bluebells and cowslips in full colour, at least a month ahead of those at Edgworth, was the first bed to be viewed, with a weeping crab apple tree in full blossom in the background. 

Robert Hughes slowly toured us from bed to bed describing the type and behaviour of particular plants, adding gardening anecdotes as he went. He gave such tips as ‘fill the beds with plants not weeds’ i.e. let perennials grow and expand; ‘plant grasses in sunken bins to control spreading’ and ‘lavender does not like this Lancashire climate’ (now we know).

Myerscough Garden



A further bed displayed a large pieris and rhododendron both in full colour. Next to an impressive weeping pear tree was a novel totem pole carving made by students on a Redwood tree stump. A wooden walkway took us past the primulas and over a pond to a large selection of geraniums. 

There was a weather station here monitoring local conditions and linked up to the Met office.

Mr Hughes emphasized that they do not use chemicals on the plots and beds, hoping for a build-up of natural predators, hence the many croaking frogs we could hear, enjoying the local slug population. 

Netting was necessary around the kitchen garden section as rabbits were sighted hopping behind us on the grass as we progressed. There were newly dug vegetable plots with fruit trees either side of the path.

Next we were taken to the greenhouses where students experimented with micro-propagation, growing new plants from a few cultured plant cells.

Totem Pole


Finally we enjoyed a woodland walk via a timber chip path amongst oak trees surrounded by bluebells and wild garlic. 

It was a thoroughly enjoyable evening visit, which hopefully will be repeated and next time we may have an opportunity to buy some of the plants on display. 

The College runs a wide range of courses on Horticulture and Land and Animal Management at all levels from access to degree level.


John Clark and Margaret Howe

Bluebells and the woodland walk