October 2026
The Ripple Effect
The Ripple Effect charity supports impoverished people in Africa by teaching them how to improve soil fertility and harvest rainwater, supplies seeds for crops suited to their regions, gives advice on creating balanced diets, thus reducing illness caused by malnutrition and caring for animals like chickens and goats. Local Ripple Effect Ambassadors also empowers both men and women with this knowledge and teaches them how to pass their experience on to others in their communities, hence the name of Ripple Effect (formerly Send A Cow). One of the aims is to break the cycle of poverty.
Trainees can then build up their vegetables and animals to sell excess produce giving them an income to improve their homes and send children to school.
Ideas we can use in our own gardens; cone gardens, gardens in a bag and keyhole gardens - all ways of conserving water and increasing productivity.
July 2nd
gertrude Jekyll, her plants and designs by David Usher
David produced a comprehensive leaflet (attached) outlining historical facts about the life of Gertrude Jekyll including a list of gardens designed by her.
Additional notes below:
David Usher was originally employed at Hestercombe Gardens as Under Gardener, but became Head Gardener in 1980’s. As Hestercombe was designed by Gertrude Jekyll he became very interested in her life and through extensive research over the years uncovered many facts, some of which were previously unknown.
Gertrude Jekyll is mainly known for her garden design and artistic prowess, but David’s slides highlighted extensive influence by the Arts and Crafts movement, being skilled in silver work, mural painting, creative needlework and interior design; she also had an interest in architecture forming a life- long friendship with Edwin Lutyens. For her own publications she learnt photography and built a darkroom at Munstead Wood.
She contributed to many gardening publications as well as ‘The Times.’ Through her friendship with William Robinson for a short time, she was co-editor of ‘The Garden’ magazine. (A name now adopted by the RHS)
She was not afraid to stand against the snobbery prevalent amongst Victorian garden designers who sought one upmanship through exotic and rare plants. She used simple and wild planting such as Dianthus and Ashphodeline. She was the first person to grow Cardiocrynum outdoors through experimentation with a pit filled with soil and cuttings. She was wrongly labelled as being against the use of annuals, but David discovered a book which showed how she championed the use of annuals to fill gaps whilst perennials were establishing.
She also developed ‘Munstead’ cultivars, many of which have now been lost, however ‘Munstead Bunch Primrose’ re-emerged at Hestercombe after being lost for 60 years.
Gertrude Jekyll invented gardening techniques to enhance planting plans and planted in drifts and layer. e.g. garden rooms, colour themed borders and climbers scrambling through shrubs.
Her meticulous attention to detail and love of bright colours and scented plants were possibly the result of visual impairment – she suffered from Myopia and wore ‘bottle’ spectacles.
Many of her gardens disappeared during the two world wars, but Hestercombe can be seen on BBC I played ‘Hidden Gardens of the National Trust.’
Memorable quote of the evening was: ‘The love of gardening is like a seed which once planted grows into an unending source of happiness.’
May 28th
Victorian Gardens of Devon with Suzanne Jones
This talk looked at the effect of the industrial revolution and empire on the Victorian gardens of Devon, taking examples from Luscombe Castle, Bicton, Tapley and other large and small gardens.
The talk looked at the social effect on society and the pace and scale of change through the 19th century, moving from the Landscape design, through the Italianate, High Victorian to the Arts and Crafts.
The talk looked at the science of the garden, the innovations such as the development and use of glass. This reflected on to influential people such as Paxton and Loudon on how people gardened.
We looked at the development of garden societies, and the one in Dawlish, our own, which has been in operation since 1860.
The talk took in the role of the nurseryman and their plant hunters who brought all the 'new' plants to Britain from around the world. Veitch Nurseries in Exeter was a key nursery and the talk looked at key plants which came into the county which has changed our garden and country landscapes.
It was a talk packed with history, with the excess and on upmanship of the wealthy in the high Victorian era alongside the cottage garden and the working man.