Monthly meetings take place at Immanuel Church Hall, Upham Road, Swindon SN3 1DH, usually on the 3rd Thursday of every month, unless noted otherwise.
We have access to the hall and kitchen from 7.30pm, and the speaker will begin at around 7.45pm. We serve teas and coffees before the speaker’s presentation. We will also be holding a raffle at many of our monthly meetings – tickets are sold before the presentation, and the draw takes place immediately after it.
Meetings planned over the nxt few months are outlined below.
January 23rd 2025: ‘Off the Beaten Track – Hidden Gems’. Andrew Tolman will tell us all about some less well-known gardens to visit, including their history, more famous residents and the particular plants one can expect to see at each.
20th February 2025: Restoration of the Great Bustard in the UK. Steve Colwill, Visits Manager for the Great Bustard Group, will explain how he and his colleagues are gradually increasing populations of this Red List creature, which is iconic to Wiltshire (it features on the county’s crest) and was hunted almost to extinction int the 19th Century.
20th March 2025: Grow the food you can’t buy. Award winning garden designer Katherine Crouch reminds us that your garden is a crucial part of your property, and will explore with us ways to ensure it ‘pulls its weight’.
17th April: Pruning. Philip Aubrey, a former director of Birmingham’s Botanical Gardens, returns to remind us of the importance of keeping our trees and shrubs in good shape through timely and well-considered pruning and, crucially, how to set about it.
15th May: SALGA Annual General Meeting and Plant Sale. Members’ opportunity to meet your 2024-25 committee, participate in the election of the 2025-2026 committee and shape SALGA’s direction for the coming year, as well as meet each other and bring plants to sell and/or buy some brought by others.
19th June: SALGA’s Summer Show Explained. Mick Carter and his colleagues on SALGA’s show committee will outline the range of classes and share their tips on how to produce winning entries.
17th July: Wilts and Berks Canal: the Swindon Connection. John Farrow will update us on progress and plans towards restoring the canal around Swindon town and the surrounding area.
21st August: Wildlife in everyday gardens. Stuart ‘The Wildman’ Mabutt & William Mankelow. Stuart is a professional wildlife gardener who runs Wildman Environmental Learning (inter alia), and will be joined with fellow podcaster and professional photographer/facilitator William to present us with a stimulating exploration of how we can do more to encourage wildlife in our gardens.
30th August (Saturday): SALGA Annual Horticultural Show, Pinetrees Community Centre, The Circle, Pinehurst, Swindon SN2 1QR. Further details will be provided in due course.
