TGS01

TALK: THE (APPLE) TREES AND THE BEES
2024-10-09 19:45 - 21:00 (Europe/London) | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
James Ellson is a writer, smallholder, and bee keeper.
He will be talking about the symbiotic relationships between honeybees, apple trees and humans.
For more further information about James and his smallholding in the Peak District please see his website https://jamesellson.com/

TALK: BUGS, SLUGS, SPOTS AND ROTS
2024-11-13 19:30 - 21:00 | Community Room, St.Alban’s Church, Tattenhall, St Alban's Church, Chester Road, Tattenhall, CH3 9QE, United Kingdom
John Scrace, Expert Plant Pathologist

PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF VENUE TO THE COMMUNITY ROOM AT ST.ALBANS CHURCH, TATTENHALL (What3Words ///catching.country.elsewhere) AND EARLIER TIME OF 7.30pm

This talk takes a look at some of the more common and damaging garden pests and diseases and how they can be managed.
Items covered include lily beetle, vine weevil, potato & tomato blight, horse chestnut tree problems, honey fungus and slugs & snails.

John is a Diagnostic Plant Pathologist and works with the RHS diagnosing the causes of member’s plant problems from their plant samples and online enquiries

He also carries out research into potential new diseases and lectures on plant health to students studying for the RHS Diploma in Horticultural Practice.

YEAR ROUND GARDEN
2025-02-12 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Zdenek Valkoun, Head Gardener, Dorothy Clive Garden

EUPHORBIAS
2025-03-12 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Don Whitton, National Collection Holder

Don is a retired schoolteacher with a passion for hardy herbaceous perennial plants in general and Euphorbias in particular. He is actively involved in 4 national garden charities – the Hardy Plant Society, Royal Horticultural Society, Plant Heritage and the National Gardens Scheme.
Don will tell us all we need to know about this very popular genus.

TALK: THE ENGLISH & GARDENING - AN OBSESSION
2025-05-14 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
DANNY WELLS

In the upstairs room at the Barbour Institute (the Billiard Room)
Our speaker is Danny Wells who has always had a love of history.
This talk will focus on the social history of the English and their gardening obsession.

PLANT SALE
2025-05-17 10:30 - 12:00 | The Barbour Institute – The Millfield, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3 9PX, United Kingdom
On the Millfield next to the Barbour Institute.
Come and bag yourself some plant bargains, plus there’s always the chance of acquiring some rarity you’ve been after for ages. Plus growing advice, of course!
Donations of plants are gratefully accepted, so please can we ask for your generosity once again in potting up spare bits of plants or seedlings?
Please bring plant donations to the Millfield from 9.30am onwards. The earlier the better as we will need time to sort and price donations before the opening time. Labels with the plant name and variety are always appreciated.
The sales area will be taped off until the official start time of 10.30am.
You are very welcome to look around before the Sale opens but we won’t be reserving plants or doing advance sales – this is to ensure everyone who turns up at the official opening time of 10.30am has a fair chance of being able to bag their selections.
Profits from the Plant Sale help to pay for the Village Show

2025 SUMMER VISIT: THE DOROTHY CLIVE GARDEN - Guided Tour
2025-06-17 10:00 | The Dorothy Clive Garden, Willoughbridge, Market Drayton, Shropshire, TF9 4E
Following on from the inspiring talk we had in February on the ‘Year Round Garden’ from Kathryn Robey, Curator Director of the Dorothy Clive garden, we have arranged a visit to see the gardens first hand.
The visit will cost £11 per person, which covers garden entry.
In addition, we have arranged a guided tour of the gardens from a member of the Dorothy Clive staff, the cost of which is being paid from our Society funds.
There are limited spaces on the guided tour and we need to give details of numbers attending by the beginning of June, therefore there is a deadline for booking tickets of Monday 2nd June. Places will not be reserved without payment.
Tickets
To buy a ticket, please do a bank transfer to our usual account, details below, and send an email to the society e-mail address (see banner at top of website) confirming the following:

how many tickets you want;
the name(s) of the people they are for; and
how many cars your party will be bringing. If you’ll be sharing transport with someone else who is going to book their ticket separately, please just make it clear what’s happening between all of you.

Tattenhall Gardening Society
Account 70882720
Sort code 20-25-69

Gift Aid
The gardens can claim back tax under the Gift Aid scheme on the cost of your ticket. If you are a UK taxpayer, we will have a sheet available for you to sign (if you’re eligible and you wish to). We’ll circulate it after we’ve arrived and before the guided tour.

Transport
This is a self-drive visit and car-sharing is encouraged. We have to let the gardens know how many cars will be arriving, so please let us know your car-share arrangements when you book your ticket. We should aim to be at the gardens by 10.00 & the tour is booked for 10.30, to allow you time to ‘use the facilities’ if you wish, in case of holdups on the way and so we can pass round the Gift Aid form.

If you do not have transport, please let us know asap so we can make arrangements for you.

Catering
We have not booked coffee, lunch or group use of the pavilion. There is a cafe which offers tea & cake, light lunches, etc, or you can BYO – or go to Bridgemere, see below.

Later on
After the tour you are free to enjoy the DC gardens at your leisure (they close at 17.00) or you may want to travel on to Bridgemere Gardens which is about 15 minutes away and more or less on the way home. Anyone who is a RHS member can get into the show gardens for free – but only the first named person if it’s a joint membership. Don’t forget to take your card. For RHS 2nd members or non-members it’s £8. No charge for the garden centre, obviously. I think by the time of our visit they should have 8 ex-Chelsea show gardens to see as they’re installing another one in May, plus about another 7 or 8 other show gardens they’ve installed previously.

TATTENHALL VILLAGE SHOW 2025
2025-09-07 14:30 - 16:00 | The Barbour Institute, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3 9PX, United Kingdom
The doors open at 9am for exhibitors, who are invited to lodge their entry forms by 11.30am at the latest and have their exhibits staged by 12 noon.

The hall and exhibit rooms will be closed at noon to allow judging to take place.

The doors will re-open at 2.30pm to the public and exhibitors can discover their fate and the public can view all the exhibits.

Prize giving will take place in the hall at approximately 3.00pm, exhibitors can collect their exhibits after the prize giving ceremony has finished.
All exhibits to remain in the show until 4pm BUT must be collected by 4.30pm.

No cost to enter exhibits, a £1 entry fee to view exhibits (free for kids)

To download the schedule and entry forms please use the buttons below or refer to the 2025 Village Show page from the Tattenhall Village Show drop down menu on the website heading main banner. There are also some tips for exhibitors on this page.

Download Schedule

Download ENTRY FORM

TALK: The Making of a Shade Garden
2025-10-08 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Mo Sawyer

Our first speaker of the season is Maureen Sawyer. She has a garden in Trafford (Southlands) that she’s been making for over 20 years and it’s been open for the National Gardening Scheme for much of that time. Like many older urban gardens it’s long and thin and, being surrounded by other gardens, it doesn’t have the luxury of a borrowed landscape (such as neighbours’ trees) to instantly enhance it. As well as being a gardener she is also a practising artist and designer. In the past she was a senior lecturer in art and design.

Mo speaks on many topics, but we’ve asked her to talk about ‘The making of a shade garden‘ as most gardens will have at least one area where shade is perceived as a problem.
7.30pm for a 7.45pm start,
Free for members, £3 on the door if not a member. Tea, Coffee and biscuits available
N.B Membership fees
Membership fees are now due and you can pay Joanna at our first meeting (cheque or cash), or by bank transfer – £14 single/ £20 joint.

AGM & TALK: 'Gardening for the Future - a look at how we as gardeners need to adapt to face a changing climate' Jack Willgoss
2025-11-12 19:30 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
EARLIER START THAN USUAL TO ACCOMADATE THE AGM – starts at 7.30pm

Tonight we will be holding our ‘as short as we can make it AGM’ followed by the talk for the night.

In a change to our advertised schedule….we have moved our talk planned for February to November and swapped Laura Willgoss for her husband, Jack.

Jack and Laura Willgoss met whilst studying horticulture at RHS Wisley. In 2011 they moved their fledgling Wildegoose Nursery to a neglected walled garden in the Shropshire hills and have brought the site most spectacularly back to life.

Discount offer

On top of what sounds like an interesting talk, and one very relevant for our times, Wildegoose Nursery is offering TGS members a special discount of 10% off orders placed online, valid until the 19th November.
You just need to type in ‘Tattenhall’ into the coupon code box at checkout.
On top of that, you can also save yourselves £9.50 postage if you can collect the order on the 12th November at the talk; all you have to do is to tick ‘local pick’ up on the delivery choices at checkout.

Looking at their online catalogue, some items are showing out of stock, but Jack if you want something that’s sold out, email them direct and he’ll have a look around to see if he can find some of whatever it is. You can’t say better than that! The email address is office@wildegoosenursery.co.uk – better make it clear you’re from TGS and not leave it till the last minute to give them a fighting chance.

Wildegoose Nursery, Shropshire

NO TALK
2025-12-10 00:00 - 23:59, 2026-01-14 00:00 - 23:59 | Cheshire

TALK: The World of Roses
2026-02-11 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Michael Marriott

Rosie Irving has not been well and will not now be able to give the talk to us on 11 Feb. We may be able to get her at a later date and will keep you posted.

However all is not lost as her partner Michael Marriot has stepped in and agreed to speak to us instead. His talk will be ‘The World of Roses’, so we can look forward, I hope, to some lovely pictures and a wealth of information about that most quintessential English flower. Though given the title, I’m hoping we get to hear about some of the lesser-known species/ varieties as well. We’ll find out! New flyer attached in case you want to circulate it and here’s some info from his website:

Michael Marriott is one of the world’s leading rosarians. He is also well-known for his rose garden design and his common sense approach to looking after roses. He was an integral part of David Austin Roses for 35 years and has intimate knowledge of all of the 200 plus English Roses bred and introduced by David Austin Roses. His enthusiasm is infectious and his knowledge of roses is encyclopaedic, especially for the species roses, the old roses, the climbers and ramblers, the best modern roses and of course David Austin’s English Roses. He is particularly enthusiastic about the very varied fragrances to be found in roses having worked side-by-side with famed “rose nose” Robert Calkin.

As a garden designer, he is known for dense romantic beds whether purely roses or mixed in with perennials. He has designed many rose gardens and borders around the world of varying sizes, both public and private. Public gardens include the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Queen Mary’s Rose Garden in Regent’s Park, Hampton Court Palace, Wynyard Hall, Trentham Gardens and the David Austin garden near Osaka in Japan.

TALK: Water Gardening
2026-03-11 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
James Allison of Water Garden Solutions

James Allison has over thirty years expertise in aquatics. His passion for ponds and water gardens began in his youth, and led to qualifications in Biology (B.Sc. Hons) and Applied Hydrobiology (M.Sc.).
Managing one of the UK’s leading aquatic retailers gave James further hands-on skills in water garden equipment, plants and fish.

TALK: Vegetables
2026-04-08 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Howard trained at local Agricultural colleges before going on to Edinburgh Botanic Garden, he then worked for 20 years as a Horticultural Training Officer and also as researcher and presenter on Central TV’s Gardening Time.
Today he writes, run gardening clubs, and runs gardening holidays around the world among other things.
He was closely associated with Ashwood Nurseries, and this access to John Massey’s garden has embellished his knowledge with a wealth of horticultural excellence that is incorporated into many presentations.

TALK: Daylilies
2026-05-13 19:45 - 21:00 | The Barbour Institute – Billiard Room, High Street, Tattenhall, Cheshire, CH3, United Kingdom
Speaker to be confirmed from New Hope Daylilies

New Hope Daylilies are extremely proud to be a British daylily nursery, nestled in the beautiful South Shropshire Hills. Owners and great friends, Liz Colebrook and Fiona Pidduck took over over running this long established horticultural business from the legendary, self confessed ‘daylily missionary’ Mark Zenick in 2022.
You can visit their nursery on their open weekends in June & July when the daylilies are at their best – see website for details (link on button at bottom of page)
