2018 Calendar of Events
Our meetings & outings organiser is Myra Smith. Give her a call on 01462 621961 |
| January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December |
| Click on a month to navigate down the page or use your browser’s ‘Find’ function (usually CTL-F) to search for specific entries | |||||||||||
January |
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| 3rd | 10:00am | Tapps is still closed for it’s new year break so no coffee morning today. | more > | |
| 18th | 7:00 for 7:15pm | ‘Sausage Sizzle Social’ – a social evening with sausage & mash |
Methodist Church Hall | more > |
| 28th | 9:00am | Trading Store reopens for the season with ‘Potato Day’ | Flint Road | more > |
February |
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| 7th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 15th | 7:45pm | Annual General Meeting followed by an insight into the work of ‘Growing People’ the Letchworth based mental health charity | Methodist Church Hall | more > |
March |
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| 7th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 15th | 7:45pm | Gardeners’ Questions with Pippa Greenwood + invited panel |
Methodist Church | more > |
April |
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| 4th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 19th | 7:45pm | ‘Developments at Hyde Hall’ by Robert Brett |
Methodist Church Hall | more > |
| 20th | 5:30pm – 8:30pm | Members NGS Open Garden | Serendi, 22 Hitchin Rd, Letchworth. | more > |
| 22nd | 11:00am – 5:00pm | Members NGS Open Garden | Serendi, 22 Hitchin Rd, Letchworth. | more > |
| 28th | 2:00pm – 5:00pm | Grow It yourself Organic – Spring Event incl. talk by Chris Collins |
Free Church Hall | more > |
May |
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| 2nd | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 16th | 7:30pm | Baldock Horticultural Society host ‘My Devon Garden’ by Anne Swithenbank |
Knights Templar School, Weston Way, Baldock | more > |
| 17th | 7:45pm | ‘Propagating, growing & using herbs’ by Zsuzsa Serer of Herbal Haven |
Methodist Church Hall | more > |
| 27th | 10:30am | ‘Children’s Gardening Workshop’ | On a Letchworth Allotment | more > |
June |
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| 6th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 9th | All Day | Coach Outing | West Dean Gardens, nr. Chichester | more > |
| 17th | 11.00am – 5.00pm | Letchworth Open Gardens | Around the town | more > |
| 21st | 7:45pm | An evening with TV celebrity gardener Christine Walkden | Methodist Church | more > |
| 30th | 10:00am – 4:00pm | LDGA at the Letchworth Festival | Leys Square | more > |
| 30th | 12.30pm – 4.00pm | Hitchin Horticultural Show | Ickleford Village Hall | - |
July |
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| 4th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 8th | 1:00pm – 5:00pm | Open Garden | Garden House Hospice Care Gillison Close, Letchworth. |
more > |
| 12th | Up to 8:00pm | Last chance to enter the Summer Show Entries close this evening a 8:00pm |
See Summer Show page for details of how to enter | more > |
| 14th | 2:00pm – 4:30pm | SUMMER SHOW including a beekeeping talk by Gary Hammond & a patchwork demonstration by Heather Wadsworth | Free Church Hall | more > |
| 15th | 11:00am – 5:00pm | Members NGS Open Garden | Scudamore, 1 Baldock Rd, Letchworth. | more > |
| 19th | 7:45pm | ‘Plants – Molecules, Medicines & Mischief’ by Gwenda Kyd | Methodist Church Hall | more > |
August |
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| 1st | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 16th | 7:45pm | Garden Designer, Nurseryman & Lecturer – Andrew Sankey | Methodist Church | more > |
September |
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| 2nd | 12.00noon – 4.00pm | Knebworth Horticultural Show | Stevenage Garden Centre, Graveley Road, Graveley | |
| 4th | All Day | Coach Outing – FULLY BOOKED | RHS Wisley Flower Show | more > |
| 5th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 6th | Up to 8:00pm | Last chance to enter the Autumn Show Entries close this evening a 8:00pm |
See Autumn Show page for details of how to enter | more > |
| 8th | 2:00pm – 4:30pm | AUTUMN SHOW including a flower arranging demonstration by Claire McNamara proprietor of Arlesey florist ‘Hello Flower’ | Free Church Hall | more > |
| 16th | 10:30am | ‘Children’s Gardening Workshop’ | On our own children’s allotment in Letchworth | more > |
| 20th | 7:45pm | ‘Bordering on Insanity’ by Oxford University Botanist Timothy Walker |
Methodist Church Hall | more > |
| 29th | 10:00am – 5:00pm | Harvest and Produce Fair | Wimpole Hall | more> |
| 29th | 12noon – 6:00pm | Apple Pressing | The Wynd, Letchworth | more> |
October |
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| 3rd | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 6th | 9:00am – 1:00pm | Growers’ Market (last of season) | Leys Square, Letchworth | more> |
| 18th | 7:45pm | ‘A year with a Horticultural Photographer’ by Michael Warren |
Methodist Church Hall | more > |
November |
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| 7th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| 15th | 3:15pm | ‘Christmas Decorations with a Hungarian Theme’ a demonstration by Zsuzsa Serer | Methodist Church Hall | more > |
| 18th | 9:00am | Last chance of the year to get your garden essentials.Trading Store closes for the season at noon |
Flint Road | more > |
| 29th | 4:00pm – 9:45pm | Coach Outing – FULLY BOOKED | Christmas Lights at Kew Gardens | |
December |
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| 5th | 10:00am | Coffee morning at Tapps | Tapps Garden Centre, Baldock | more > |
| Your feedback please – let us know what you think of the meetings and outings that we arrange. Tell us which ones you enjoyed most and what you would like to see in the program for next year. Please send in your comments to meetings@ldga.org.uk or speak to us at the meetings |
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Get the gardening year under-way and come along to the first coffee morning of 2018. LDGA members are entitled to 10% discount off all items from the garden centre and tea room. This is also a good opportunity for you to renew your membership for the next 12 months.
We reopen the Trading Store with a ‘Potato Day’ when there will be 10% discount on all seed potatoes plus advice on which varieties to choose and how to grow them. To keep you warm, we will be serving free leek and potato soup while supplies last. It's also a great opportunity to renew your membership for another year.
This is your opportunity to find out what’s been going on in the LDGA.
The guest speaker will be Alison Shersby who will give us an insight into the work of ‘Growing People’ the Letchworth based mental health charity who use horticulture to help people's wellbeing.
This is our charity evening with an expert panel:
Central Methodist Church, Pixmore Way, Letchworth SG6 3TR 
Robert is a lifelong horticulturalist and has been the curator of the gardens at Hyde Hall for nearly 3 years. He will tell us about plans for the site.
Zsuzsa, chief propagator at Herbal Haven will be giving us an insight into the world of growing herbs on a large scale and how we can all use them in our cooking.
We are very excited to announce the start of a new children's group called 'Seedlings'. It is aimed at young gardeners aged 4 to 10 years old. Our first event will be a ‘Children's Gardening Workshop’. During the workshop, which will be held under parental supervision on a real allotment in Letchworth, each child will learn how to make their own paper plant pot, sow their own sunflower seed, cress head and wildflower pot. Each child will receive a certificate. The cost is £3/child.
We leave Letchworth from outside the former Plinston Hall at 9:00am and arrive back at approx. 5:00pm. LDGA members £19, non-members £22. You will see an impressive collection of working Victorian Glasshouses, a 300ft pergola, a spring garden with flint bridges and a walled garden. There is also a restaurant and the Gardens shop.
As part of the 2018 Letchworth Festival, LALG invite you to tour over twenty open gardens in Letchworth. As well as a warm welcome, some will be offering refreshments and plant sales.
Celebrity gardener and resident ‘One Show’ gardening guru, Christine Walkden visits to us to tell us everything we need to know about ‘The Life and Times of a Gardener’ – This talk tells of the thrills and spills of a life as a gardener and broadcaster. It is entertaining and inspirational, often making people laugh and cry during the same evening.
As part of the 2018 Letchworth Festival we will be taking part in the community stalls day in Leys Square.
Gwenda, scientist and complementary medicine practitioner with an interest in plants and how we use them, tells us about the uses and misuses of a selection of well-known and less well-known examples.
Paul Harrington, our advertised speaker won't be able to join us. Andrew Sankey who came to us last June to talk about Chatsworth and Joseph Paxton has very kindly agreed to step in. We'll leave it up to Andrew to choose the topic but rest assured it will be an informative & entertaining talk. For this month only we will be meeting in the church itself, please come in by the side door as usual.
Leave Letchworth at 9:15am and arrive back approx. 5:45pm. Members £13, non-members £16. This is the first day of the spectacular RHS late summer show at Wisley. It features 55 nurseries & 22 trade stands, the National Dahlia Society Show & floral displays by the Surrey area of the National Association of Flower Arrangement Societies (NAFAS).
We are very excited to announce our second 'Seedlings' workshop for young gardeners aged 4 to 10 years old. During the workshop, which will be held under parental supervision on our own allotment in Letchworth, each child will make a mini beast hotel, plant some bulbs ready for spring and help with the pumpkin harvest. Each child will receive a certificate and will get to take home the insect hotel and the potted bulbs. The cost is £3/child.
Timothy, an Oxford University botanist looks exclusively at the herbaceous border in his Wife’s garden covering the principles and practicalities to be adopted when creating an all year round border.
Writer, lecturer and photographer Michael Warren introduces us to the Plants, Places, People, Gardens and Shows he encounters throughout the horticultural year.
On 6th December Hungarians celebrate the day of St. Mikulás their version of Santa Claus. On the night before, children leave their polished boots at the window in the hope they will be filled with treats and small gifts. But it is not until 24th, Holy Night, that Hungarians traditionally decorate their Christmas trees. Zsuzsa will tell us more.
