Are your dinner parties so last decade, darling?

Yes - that really is a bust made from mashed potato!

The events year for the RHS has kicked off with the annual Spring Plant fair, held at the exhibition halls in London (more on this in a later post).  Among all the exhibits of plants and vegetables we came across a new idea, which should strike terror into the hearts of any budding hosts or hostesses when planning their new round of dinner parties.

You all remember the craze for ice sculptures (of course, my home wouldn't be complete without one - Ed), but we could at least pretend that these were far too big (and wet) to be practical for the average home dinner.  It appears that these really are "so last decade", and that some bright spark has come up with a new idea to stress us all.

No longer is it enough to plant, grow, cook and serve your own home-grown vegetables, with a few artfully arranged flowers from your own cutting garden poking out of your handcrafted ice sculpture bowl, gracefully surrounded by starched napkins folded into perfect replicas of swans.  It appears that we now also have to sculpt all the mashed potato into wonderful new artwork as well.

Unfortunately, we were so amazed at some of the striking - and excellent - sculptures on display that we failed to note which varieties are normally used.   Since supermarkets currently list only the culinary uses of their varieties, we are left wondering how long it will take for Waitrose to list "suitable for sculpture" to "mashing, baking and boiling" when printing their packaging.

Perhaps we should add "potato sculpture" into our Autumn Show, under handicrafts or vegetables?  Or perhaps not ... 

February Meeting 2015

Our meeting this month will feature Dr David Donaldson, taking about "Poisonous Plants and Vegetables".  We were tempted to subtitle this "How to Kill Your Husband", but objections were raised by certain members who felt that they would prefer "How to Kill Your Wife"!

We hope to see you there on the 11th February.  Please don't forget to renew your subscription, if you did not do so last month, so that you can receive your Sunshine Yellow programme for 2015!

January Meeting 2015 - The Canal Gardens of Amsterdam

One of the newer modern gardens in the Canal District, not
normally open to the public.

Thanks to Jilly and Jeremy for their talk on The Canal Gardens of Amsterdam.  These gardens are associated with the houses in the Canal District, and a number of them open to the public (this year on 19th, 20th, 21st June 2015).  Some belong to museums and may be open through the year, but many are private gardens which are not accessible at any other time.

We learned that the gardens have evolved from productive potagers, through to the style called French Baroque, on to an English Landscape style, and then to more modern interpretations of parterres and herbaceous styles.  There is a great deal of interest in garden restoration, and there are some genuinely new gardens rebuilt from areas covered by warehouses and storerooms.  The Open Days are a good way to see Amsterdam and, from this talk, look to be well worth a visit! More details may be found on http://www.opentuinendagen.nl/, or drop us an email and we can send more details to you!