AUGUST 2016

NOTTINGHAM AND NOTTS

FUCHSIA SOCIETY

August 2016 NEWSLETTER

Phew! It has definitely been a busy time. Not only have I been busy at our Annual show, exhibiting and helping out, I have also been exhibiting at Derby Fuchsia Society’s Annual show at Swarkestone Nursery. I am finally admitting that I have the bug!

I was cursing prior to our show, because I had spent a lot of time and effort working on my fuchsias, tidying the debris, watering and feeding them to find one day that all the compost had been removed from several of my bonsai plants and one of my younger plants was actually missing!. I hunted high and low for this missing plant and became quite frustrated. I refilled the bonsai pots with fresh compost and finally found the missing bonsai so was able to replant. I was perplexed as to what was doing the damage. The same thing happened again! The degree of destruction wasn’t bad enough for it to be caused by a squirrel or cat – it had to be something smaller; a bird or mouse, I suspected. A few days later, it all became clear, we had a family of blackbirds in the garden and the juvenile birds were having a great time using my fuchsia pots as their playground! I love the thought of a family blackbirds using our garden, as in fairness, I want to encourage wildlife into the garden, but not around my fuchsias (especially my Bonsai!) Luckily after I moved the fuchsias to a different location in the garden, the blackbirds moved on. Unfortunately, then, just a couple of days prior to the show, the high winds came, and I spent more time picking the fuchsias up off the ground than anything else. I was not best pleased! It was at this point that Bob threatened to concrete over the garden and get rid of all fuchsias! I immediately calmed down and just managed to chunter softly under my breath.

This year, I have managed to enter more exhibits than ever before (both at Nottingham & Derby). However, despite listening to the many show-talks that Colin arranges for us every year, I have fallen short this year and feel I must share with you lessons that I will (hopefully) learn from this year:

Give yourself enough time to prepare your plants beforehand – Strangely, I seemed to struggle more exhibiting at Derby than at Nottingham. Too many plants and not enough time.
Plan ahead - I spent most of last Friday evening in the garden, out sorting which plants I was taking and doing what I thought would be a final quality check. How wrong was I! I found so much debris around the base of the plant and amongst the branches, that I was running out of time as I found myself cleaning my plants on the Saturday when really all I should have been doing was putting them on the show bench.
Make sure your pots agree with the schedule - I have never made this mistake before, but then again I’ve never entered this particular class before! I chose to enter Class 19 Three Pots, Any variety - 3 ½ " size pots, find out that on closer inspection, I had 1 x 3 ½ " Pot and 2 x 4" Pots – What a disaster!

I’ve included this, as I don’t want the same to happen to any of you new to showing. Take time to read the schedule and be a Boy Scout and Be Prepared! (That is hard for me to say as I was a member of the Girls Brigade!)

Once again, a very successful show. The weather stayed fine and we weren’t impacted greatly on any other local event that might have been taking place. However, as you can see from the numbers below, we were down both exhibits and exhibitors compared to last year.

	2013	2014	2015	2016
Number of Exhibits	230	193	229	214
Number of Exhibitors	24	17	27	20

There were exhibits in all but three classes this year: -

Class	Description
13	1 Plant single or double, any Bob Pacey cultivar – Max 152mm (6") pot.
17	Novices Class: – 1 Plant, any cultivar – Max 165mm (6.5") pot.
19	Children’s Class (Under 15yrs): – 1 Fuchsia Plant, any cultivar, any size pot.

Novices Class – It was great to see a large number of entries in the Beginners class this year – Well done all you beginners! However, remember that you could also have entered the Novices class. In other words, if any of you had multiple exhibits to enter, you could have entered some in the Novices as well as the Beginners. (If anyone had entered one of their exhibits into the Novices class, there was a good chance they would have won a card!) Remember the saying – don’t keep all your eggs in one basket!

Children’s Class – It was a shame that we had no exhibits in this class. Unfortunately, we no longer go out to the local Brownie Groups as it was a lot of hard work and time for very little to show for it. So, how can we reach out to the younger age group? After visiting our show last year, my niece and husband were very interested in encouraging young Lillie Maye to enter a fuchsia, and they nearly succeeded! I provided Lillie Maye with 2 small plug plants and gave written instructions on how and when to pot on, pinch out etc. 1st plug plant, Lillie Maye decided to plant directly out in the garden! She kind of had the right idea! A gardener in the making! The 2^nd plug plant was doing very well until my niece hosted a children’s party and one of Lillie Maye’s friends fell on it. Disaster!

Lillie Maye will try again next year. However, on a serious note - if any of you can encourage a younger member of your family to pot up and nurture a small fuchsia plant for next year – that would be great!

Bob Pacey Cultivars - It may be worth looking at the list of cultivars which can be found in our schedule and try to grow one or two. There are some popular cultivars:

Bambini

Brenda White

Carla Johnson

Torville & Dean

I have just scanned the list and will be looking out for the following cultivars – ‘Bobs Best’ & ‘Bobs Choice’.

The most popular classes for number of exhibits this year were:

Class	Description	No. of Exhibits
16	Beginners: 1 Plant, any cultivar – Max 165mm (6.5") Pot	11
32	1 Plant ornamental or variegated-leaved cultivar – Max 165mm (6.5") pot	10
14s	6 Flowerheads: 6 distinct cultivars, single	9
18	Ladies: 1 Plant, any cultivar – Max 165mm (6.5") Pot	9
24	Patio Container must container at least one Fuchsia	9

PLEASE NOTE: The cultivar of this year’s free cutting was ’VERA GARCIA’

Plant Stall

The plants were again good quality from Jacksons Nurseries and the public were quick to purchase, which resulted in there being very little plants left to sell on the Sunday. We reduced the number we had held back for the Plant Tombola, because it made more sense to deal with the demand than be left with surplus plants on Sunday. ‘Why didn’t we buy more plants?’ I hear you all say. Well, if we had bought more plants and the weekend was a wash-out, resulting in low footfall, then someone (and I guess that would have been Derek) would have had to take them home, maintain them over the winter, risk the chance of losing them and that would also result in losing money. A difficult call, because 2 years now, we could have sold more, had we got them to sell.

Luckily a few of our members had grown some fuchsias and donated them to sell. This meant we did have some to sell on the Sunday, which was a great relief. Therefore, this is my challenge to you – can we all take some cuttings and donate to the society to sell at the show. Here are a few ideas: -

Free ‘NAMED’ Cutting – In February all members receive 2 cuttings: 1 x unnamed cutting and 1 x named cutting. If everyone could take at least ONE cutting to pot on to sell at the show. How great would that be!
Your Favourite Fuchsia – Everyone has a favourite; one that strikes easily for you. Again, when you are taking cuttings, consider doing extra to donate to the society.
Top Ten Fuchsias – Look at the list of Top Ten fuchsias which Carol Gubler produces on an annual basis. These are fuchsias which are regularly seen on the show bench up and down the country. If you have one or two, try taking cuttings and donate to the society. (see attached list)
Winners Classes – Every year, I produce a list of Winners (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd) of all the classes in our show (see attached document). Review this list and if you have any of these cultivars, try taking cuttings and donate.

These are just a few suggestions to encourage you to grow fuchsias for our society, so that next year we can not only sell plants purchased from Jacksons Nurseries but also proudly sell additional plants which will be all profit for our society!

Advertising - The weather was very kind to us this year which resulted in approximately 280 visitors over the two days. This was largely due to our advertising campaign which was undertaken prior to the show: -

Flyers through letterboxes
Posters displayed in approximately 20 Garden Centres across the County
Other Posters displayed in prominent locations
Adverts in local free magazines
Adverts online – ‘spotted’ sites
Word of Mouth; Friends and family

Statistics have shown that by far, the most popular means of advertising is word of mouth and having the support of our family and friends!

Geoff Smith –I’m sure you’d all like to join me in wishing Geoff Smith a speedy recovery. For those who are unaware, Geoff suffered a heart attack prior to the show, but still managed to put exhibits on the show bench, all thanks to June. Geoff – we wish you all the best.

Ros Clarke – Ros is recovering from a fall and unfortunately missed the show. We all hope you are on the mend.

Ruth Clements – Ruth has helped Jenny in the kitchen for many years but this year after suffering a fall was unable to help out. It is good to see you on the mend and wish you all the best.

Thank you to everyone who helped over the weekend, from setting up; manning a stall; exhibiting and finally those who helped tidy up at the end. Thanks also to all friends and family who helped us. Their support is much appreciated.

POST SHOW ACTIVITY

Beeston Express

Luckily, Sheila Eden, editor of the local newspaper made time to visit our show and has put a glowing report together in last week’s edition.

Article to be submitted to ALL Free Local Magazines

As normal, I will be submitting a report to the various magazines.

Show Report to be submitted to Carol Gubler, editor of Fuchsia News (BFS)

Carol looks forward to reading annual reviews of the many shows that take place as well as receiving the various results, so she can collate data and produce the ‘TOP TEN FUCHSIAS’.

OBITUARY TO THELMA COPESTAKE

It is with great sadness that I inform you that Thelma passed away peacefully after struggling with her health over the past 2 years. Thoughts are with Elaine and family at this time.

Thelma had been a long-standing member of our society and had supported us at the many sale events that we have held over the years and always supported us at our Annual show, mainly on the Plant stall. Elaine and I both knew that Thelma would be looking down on us, making sure we were displaying the plants how she’d want them.

Rest in Peace, Thelma.

Her funeral was held at Bramcote Crematorium on Wednesday 9th August at 2.45p.m.

NEWSLETTER

If anyone wants any item included in the Newsletter, please let me know, either at a meeting, or phone me on Tel: 0115 8758928, or email: jayne.daykin@ntlworld.com I will gladly include any article or event in the Newsletter.

Also, if anyone would rather I send them an electronic copy, please let me know.

Remember: It is YOUR newsletter.

FUNDRAISING

The easiest way for all internet users to help raise funds for our Society is simply by every time you search the Web you use easysearch. Easysearch combines results from Yahoo!, Windows MSN Live Search and Ask.com in one simple search, the address is http://nottsfuchsia.easysearch.org.uk Please try it and encourage others too. Don’t forget if you make any purchases on the internet, to go through our webshop to make sure we receive commission from the retailers (currently over 2000 well known retailers), the address is http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/nottsfuchsia .

23^rd August	Nottingham & Notts Fuchsia Society Monthly Meeting – Alan Soloman – Triphylla Fuchsias - Meeting starts at 7.45p.m
10^th – 11^th September	Long Eaton & District Horticultural Society AUTUMN Show - held at the Coronation Hall, Toton, 2.00p.m to 5.00p.m on the Saturday and 10.0am to 3.45pm Sunday. ADMISSION FREE
27^th September	Nottingham & Notts Fuchsia Society Monthly Meeting – John Gibson – Daffodils - Meeting starts at 7.45p.m (Joint Meeting with Derby Fuchsia Society)
6^th October	Social Evening – Meal – Clockhouse, Shardlow – 7.00p.m for 7.30p.m
25^th October	Nottingham & Notts Fuchsia Society Monthly Meeting – Fred Hunderhay – Overwintering Fuchsias - Meeting starts at 7.45p.m
22^ndNovember	AGM & Christmas Buffet – starting at 7.45p.m

It was great to see so many entries in the Beginners class this year. Here are a few further ideas for you to consider:

- Make a note in your diaries to attend other Fuchsia shows in 2017.

- Don’t be afraid to ask questions at the meetings.

- Speak to any experienced exhibitor/member, you’ll find they are always willing to support and give advice.

- Read the schedule and plan well ahead.

- Follow the timetable.

- Enjoy what you do!　

SOCIAL MEAL – 6^th October – The Clock Warehouse, Shardlow – 7.00p.m for 7.30p.m

Anyone interested in joining us, please put your name down.　

Colin is looking for the following Bob Pacey cultivars. If anyone can provide him with a plant or cutting, he’d be most grateful:

City of Leicester	Rutland Water	Belvoir Castle	Belvoir Elf
Bobs Best**	Bobs Choice**	Robin Pacey	Radcliffe Beauty

With reference to my earlier note, if anyone has Bobs Choice or Bobs Best, I’d also be very grateful!

*********************************************************************************

FEEDBACK– I’d like to have your views on ‘What went well’ and ideas on ‘What we could do to improve our show’. Please post your suggestions in the black shoebox provided. Thanks