News of events coming up and a great start to the gardening year. If only it would rain, our happiness would be complete !! There is much of interest over the next few weeks.
Our next event is a Propagation and Plant Sales day at the Quinta da Figueirinha near to Silves. This will take place on Friday October 16th from 10.30 to 15.00 approx there will be workshops on various techniques such as cuttings, seed collecting, storage and sowing and we hope to organise a grafting demonstration. As we will not have our usual plant sales table at the garden fair this year, we encourage you to bring along any plants you wish to sell or swap. We will have some plants for sale on the day, such as Agave decipiens and Iris wattii, both great for naturalising, together with a selection of bulbs and succulents. There will also be some plants for sale from a new nursery run by Gerald Luckhurst. The aim is that this day can concentrate on helping you with propagation queries and sharing plants. Please book your place with at rosie@thebtf.net .
W: www.qdf.pt
We are very excited to have a specialist Mediterranean Rose Nursery all the way from south west France coming to the Garden Fair at Estoi on Saturday November 7th. A pre-order list of roses recommended for Portugal is available (email rosie@thebtf.net), which can collected from them at the Garden Fair.
All roses are 16 euros each with no extra transport costs. John and Becky Hook have been highly recommended for the quality and care they take in producing their roses. Please contact Becky Hook sales@frenchtearose.com direct to make your orders or with any queries, they are looking forward to their first visit to Portugal so we hope for a good response to this very special opportunity.
W: http://www.frenchtearose.com
You can hear more about Roses for Mediterranean Gardens from Charles Quest Ritson at http://www.mediterraneangardeningportugal.org/charlesquest_ritson.html.
Our partner group in Lisbon, AAJBA, Associação dos Amigos do Jardim Botânico da Ajuda has an exciting programme of visits, and courses held in the garden, for the coming months, all details are on their web site www.aajba.com They plan a visit to Jordan in November, a weekend in Coimbra and guided visit to the Ponte de Lima Garden Festival in the north of Portugal.
Please email rosie@thebtf.net for full details and/or advance booking form for the pretour Sintra/Lisbon garden visits.
At our special International Spring Conference based in Lagos in April 2016. Our keynote speakers are the inspirational Olivier Filippi and Dr Ken Thompson from Sheffield University. Both will be providing their enthusiastic support for a more relaxed approach to mediterrenean gardening based on knowledge of the appropriate plants, and of the soils we have to work with. The base in Lagos will allow us to make visits to the spectacular west coast wildflowers and we have guided walks included in the programme. Residential bookings for the Sintra pretour must be received by 23 November to secure hotel rooms.
