Upcoming Events at a glance
| Date & Time | Where | What – who to contact |
|---|---|---|
| Friday 12 June 10:00 am – 12:00 pm | Bream Sports Club | Monthly Friday market BGS have a stall Kathryn Gardner |
| Saturday 27 June 8:30 am at WDC | Yeo Valley Organic Gardens & Bristol University Botanical Gardens | Coach Trip to two outstanding gardens Kathryn Gardner/ John Theophilus |
| Wednesday 8 July – Sunday 12 July | Badminton Estate, Badminton | RHS Badminton Flower Show Suzanne Snowden |
| Tuesday 14 July 7:30 – 9:30 pm | Bream Sports Club | July Meeting: “Tasting the science and craft in your coffee” talk & demonstration by Peter James Diana Standing |
| Saturday 18 July 9:30 am – 5:00 pm | Nant-y-Bedd Garden, Forest coal pit, Nr Abergavenny | Minibus Trip to Nant-y-Bedd Garden Diana Standing |
Contact Details:
Kathryn Gardner & Suzanne Snowden: breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com
Diana Standing: bgsprogsec@gmail.com
John Theophilus: secretarybgs100@gmail.com
Newsletter News
Last month’s newsletter was sent out using Mailchimp. It meant we got statistics of delivery and readership for the first time. The good news is that 100% of the emailed links to the newsletter arrived in members’ mailboxes. The less good news is that only about 50% were opened.
The 50% which weren’t opened could have been trapped by spam filters and similar; or redirected into areas of people’s mailboxes reserved for “uninteresting” mail (most email browsers have this functionality for promotional emails etc.); or got buried in other stuff or…
The key thing is they weren’t seen by our members, and so (for example) half of you weren’t aware that Cheryl & Sue were opening their gardens for viewing last weekend. 2 days before the event, only 11 people had booked and we had to scramble to contact the people whom we knew hadn’t seen the newsletter to encourage attendance. In the end, some 30 members visited and enjoyed two very interesting (and different) gardens and had plenty of tea and cake into the bargain. Thank you for an excellent day C&S!
Lost bookings for our internal activities is inconvenient, lost bookings for activities which have financial consequences (such as the upcoming coach trip on 27 June) is much more serious! We are looking at how we can ensure the news gets out through multiple channels besides the Newsletter (Facebook, for example).
However, if you want to ensure the newsletter gets delivered safely to your inbox, the best way to do so is to add the address it comes from (members@breamgardeners.net) to your address book. If another member tells you they never see it, please either pass on this advice or suggest they contact me for assistance – secretarybgs100@gmail.com. Please also ask them to check in their spam and promotions folders.
Jane’s Jottings
Jane has been so busy gardening this month that she has been unable to jot!
Many apologies to her fans – she’ll be back next month.
John
Upcoming events
Monthly BSC Market, Friday 12 June
We will, as usual, have a stall at the Bream Sports Club monthly market, selling plants and promoting the BGS. Please come along to support this small market of local traders selling various handmade crafts and bric-a-brac. Contact Kathryn if you would like to help on the stall or for more information: breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com
Annual Coach Trip, Saturday 27 June: Yeo Valley Organic Gardens & Bristol Botanic Gardens
For our annual coach trip this year, we have a real treat. Two outstanding gardens to visit in a single grand tour! At each location, we will have the opportunity to explore the garden for about 2 hours, including a guided tour.
We will start our day in the garden at Yeo Valley and then stay there over lunchtime. Anyone who attended Nicola Hope’s talk last month will have heard her wax lyrical over the delights we will enjoy in this garden. Or you may make your own investigations by looking at their website here: Yeo Valley Organic Gardens.
Members may enjoy eating in the Organic Garden Cafe if they wish – I’ve included an illustrative menu at the end of this section. We’ve been asked how many of our members wish to eat in the cafe and if any have special dietary requirements so that they can cater accordingly – please indicate on the sign up form.
After lunch, we will be moving on to visit the Bristol University Botanic Gardens (less than half an hour away and on our way home). Here we can either wander at our leisure or join another guided tour. If you are feeling “gardened out” (does anyone ever feel this??!), you can choose to have a stroll on Durdham and Clifton Downs instead (saving the entry fee for the Botanic Gardens).
As you would expect, the botanic gardens are full of fascinating stuff. If you’d like to see what treats are in store, you can follow this link Bristol Botanic Gardens.
Essentially, these are two half-day visits linked together to make the most of a coach trip down to south of Bristol. We will be leaving Bream at 08:30 am and back before 6:00 pm. We are also doing pickups in Lydney & Chepstow en route.
Cost will be a maximum of £32/head, but there are numerous discounts available for members of popular gardening organisations (eg RHS) and Bristol University alumni etc. Please book your places here: Yeo Valley & Bristol Botanic Gardens – Coach trip, 2026 – booking form, where you will be able to give us the information required to confirm your price.
There are only some 15 places left (at the time of writing), and so please book quickly to avoid disappointment!
RHS Flower Show, 8-12 July: Badminton
Work is continuing apace with the Young Gardeners’ exhibit for the Badminton Show. Another frantic Young Gardeners’ workshop last month saw them complete the peg dolls, which will represent them ‘playing’ in the Forest landscape we are re-creating in our wheelbarrow exhibit.
The show is in early July, and members may enjoy coming along to see the sights and cheer on our Young Gardeners’ exhibit. We aren’t organising a mass visit, mainly because the discount for group tickets is so feeble that it is hard to make it economically attractive. RHS members get better discounts in their own right and can take 3 friends with them on the same discount! (We recommend self-organisation around the many RHS members in our Society.)
We are required to have 2 members of the Young Gardeners team ‘on guard’ every day, looking after the exhibit and answering questions. So if you are visiting, be sure to go and give them encouragement.
And we are now entitled to use the RHS Exhibitor logo in our publications, like this!
Any questions or comments to me or Suzanne on secretarybgs100@gmail.com or breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com.
July meeting, Tuesday 14 July: Tasting the science and craft in your coffee
Our monthly meeting in July will be a very different affair from the usual.
Peter James, of James Gourmet Coffee, will be introducing us to the world of coffee cultivation and processing. He will then illustrate, through a tasting session, the wide variety of flavours which arise from a single cultivar when it is grown in different climatic conditions, altitudes, soil types etc. etc. We will be sitting around tables, sipping (or slurping) different brews and discussing what we think of them.
Peter is a very knowledgeable, down-to-earth fellow, and we’re expecting a very entertaining and informative evening.
Garden visit, Saturday 18 July: Nant-y-Bedd gardens
We will be getting a private group tour around this 10-acre organic garden, hidden in conifer woodland high in the Black Mountains.
It is a wonderful mixture of organic fruit and vegetables, imaginative planting, mature trees, winding paths, bridges, ponds, streams and ‘designer’ dry-stone walls.
A previous winner of the RHS’s Partner Garden of the Year. You can check it out for yourself at their web site nantybedd.com
As reported last month there is only parking for four vehicles by the gardens, so we will be arranging minibus travel for everyone who wants to visit.
I’m afraid there are still things which need finalising, so we have been unable to set up the booking form for this visit in time to include a link to it in this newsletter.
We’ll be sending out another email to all members in the next few days, when it’s available . Sorry for any inconvenience.
Other Events
Events arranged by other organisations which we think may be of interest to our members are as follows.
| Date & Time | What/Where | Link |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday 14 June 2:00 – 4:00 pm | “Midsummer meadow Meander” with ecologist Helena Ronicle, at Angus Buchanan Recreation Ground, Coleford. organised by Transition Monmouth | Free, email to register mail@transitionmonmouth.org |
| Thursday 18 June 10:00 – 2:30 pm | Tree planting course and farm walk at Noxon Farm, St Briavels | Booking Form for course |
| Wednesday 24 June | Visit to Morton Hall Gardens & Webbs of Wychbold, organised by Cheltenham Horticultural Society | Booking_Form_for_Moreton_Hall_Gardens.pdf |
| Friday 3 July 12:30 – 4:00 pm | Flower arranging workshop: Hand tied bouquet & Posies Llanishen Village Hall, NP16 6EQ | Alwyn’s Summer Workshops – Information |
| Thursday 9 July 12:30 – 4:00 pm | Flower arranging workshop: Design using pedestals and pillars West Dean Centre, GL15 6JW | Alwyn’s Summer Workshops – Information |
| Thursday 23 July | Visit to Highfield Farm, Nr Pontypool, organised by Narth and District Gardening Club | Narth and District Gardening Club events |
| June, July & August | Scything Courses run by Beth Tilston – various FoD locations | https://bethtilston.co.uk |
National Gardens Scheme
Don’t forget that more or less every weekend there are great NGS gardens to visit. Try this link for the gardens open in our local area over the next month Find a Garden | National Garden Scheme.
Canwood Gallery
Anyone fancying something a little different might like to try the Canwood Gallery. A gallery of contemporary art located in rural Herefordshire between Hereford and Ledbury. This month they have an exhibition entitled “Becoming” which is inspired by nature and changes in the artist’s garden. If you are interested you can check out their website here Canwood Gallery
Other News
Summer Show News
Show Schedule
If you picked up a copy of the Show Schedule in May, it is probably from the first print run, which contains a few small errors. There is no need to replace it (that is just a waste of money!) – please just make a few corrections instead. Most of the errors aren’t important (grammatical errors and the like), but a few are significant:
- Page 6 should say “Show entry: All classes bar one (Class MO) are …”
- Page 8, class 4 should say “Double points”.
- Page 18, class 47 should say “Double points”.
- Page 20, MEMBERS-ONLY CLASS: BIGGEST BLOOM should be class MO, not 59.
- Page 28, class 77 should say “£2 £1.50 £1”.
- Page 30, WASTE NOT WANT NOT: MOSAIC should be class WN, not 80.
- Page 56, the entry form should include classes MO and WN. The entry form in the version of the schedule published on our website is correct: Bream Summer Show – Bream Gardening Society. Updated entry forms will also be available at the July and August meetings.
Thank you to everybody who has helped us to distribute the schedules and flyers. If you know of anywhere else that we should be advertising the Show (community buildings, shops, hobby clubs etc.) then please get in touch with Kathryn at breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com.
Show Entries
Don’t forget that this week is your last opportunity to buy plants if you wish to enter them into the Vegetable or Floral Sections at the Show. All horticultural exhibits must have been grown/produced by the exhibitor or have been in their possession for at least two months prior to the Show.
If you haven’t entered a show before, please don’t feel intimidated. In the schedule, we say time and again “Your entries don’t need to be perfect, just have a go! The more entries, the better the show.” and we really do mean it. We will be publishing further ‘Show Advice’ on the website in July. However, if you have any questions at all, simply contact Kathryn at breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com and she will seek out an answer for you.
Please try to enter online if you can. The online entry form has been slightly delayed but will go live this week: Online Entry Form – Summer 2026.
Top tip: It is crucial that you read the section and class requirements carefully – please pay particular attention to the number of specimens/size/space allowed. Our judges hate having to disqualify winning exhibits because you have, for example, displayed the wrong number of specimens!
Show Raffle & Volunteers
The August meeting is very close to the Summer Show this year, and so we will be collecting prizes for the raffle and recruiting volunteers for the Show at the July meeting instead. Please help out where you can, thank you. We shall be sending out further information in a couple of weeks’ time.
Without a main show sponsor this year, the funds brought in by the raffle are more important than ever. Books of raffle tickets are available to sell to your friends and family – please contact Suzanne at breamgardeningsociety@gmail.com or pick up some books at the July meeting.
Don’t forget that we must have the ticket stubs and, just as importantly, any unsold books back by 6pm on Thursday 13th August 2026 at the latest. Thank you.
Photograph competition
Don’t forget there is a competition to get your photographs in the BGS 2027 calendar. To enter, send your photographs (landscape orientation) of plants, nature or of local interest to secretarybgs100@gmail.com. We will be selling this calendar in October and November, ready for Christmas!