Garden History Review - Spring 2009

Winter meetings were held each month at 5.30pm and our first of the year was a short meeting followed by a most enjoyable New Year supper after which Mr Roger Long showed an interesting selection of slides featuring English gardens.

We gave our lunchtime talk in February, the subject being Public Parks and Gardens. At a time when so much land is taken over for building, the open space of the public park is ever more important to the well-being of residents and visitors. Here in Jersey we are fortunate to have the benefit of several parks and the three parks selected for our talk were: Howard Davis Park, St Helier given to the people of Jersey by Mr TB Davis, Coronation Park (also known as Millbrook Park), St Lawrence, donated by Lady Trent and Sir Winston Churchill Memorial, St Brelade, which was created by the Jersey States on land purchased from the Ellis family. The speakers were April Rosner, (Howard Davis Park), Jennifer Rendell (Coronation Park) and Sue Groves (Sir Winston Churchill Memorial Park). There will be a full report of this talk in the Bulletin.

We are continuing our research for Jersey Parks and Gardens including Devon Gardens, St Martin, Gorey Promenade Gardens, St Martin, and the Railway Walk Public Footpath and Gardens, St Brelade.

Summer meetings will be held at 8pm commencing with our next meeting on Thursday, 9th April. The later time is to enable gardeners to make the most of the longer evenings and to avoid the increased summer traffic.

We are planning three garden visits during the summer months and on these occasions we usually meet at the designated garden at 6pm followed by a short meeting.

Mayda Reynolds - Chairman