GARDEN People growing!


Kate Ingrams, the Volunteer Coordinator at Ventnor Botanic Gardens, appeals for us to pick up our spades and dig


I have muscled my way into Chris Kidd’s column this Issue, just to keep you up to date with volunteering at Ventnor Botanic Garden.


Kate Ingrams


Volunteer Coordinator at Ventnor Botanic Gardens


Kate has been


Volunteer Coordinator at VBG for a year


now. She had been a gardener there. The volunteer role is for all ages and she works with schools (including St Catherines and Sandown Academy) and they are trying to get a youth session up and running soon too. “The volunteer role at the garden is expanding. As well working in the garden, we are looking for tour guides, meet and greet-ers and information assistants. We are open minded to any role that a volunteer feels may be. It will go from strength to strength, with volunteers providing access to the garden on all levels.”


Something exciting is happening at Ventnor Botanic Garden, the garden is springing into life with vigour – areas are being planted up, filling out and looking amazing. We have some wonderful plants doing wonderful things – things you just wouldn’t see in any other garden (keep an eye out for the Puya - you should hear all about it soon!).


The garden staff are fantastic at their jobs but the importance of volunteers can scarcely be exaggerated – it would be impossible to achieve the results that we do without a group of committed individuals who are willing to contribute their energies in a variety of ways. They help us enhance the garden environment to ensure our visitors have an enjoyable, educational, memorable and wonderful visit to our garden. These are unique roles, complementing the work of the garden staff.


The most important fact to remember is that our volunteers give us their time and their talent. We have a wide and diverse range of volunteers here,


Love plants?


How to support Ventnor Botanic Garden, help it develop, get involved in a thriving community of garden lovers, become a hands- on volunteer, have a say in the future of our Island’s internationally important garden as it passes into private hands? Join Ventnor Botanic Garden Friends’ Society. Go to www.ventnorbotanicfriends. org.uk for all you need to know about the Society that has backed the Garden’s horticultural ambitions for 25 years.


90 www.styleofwight.co.uk


undertaking roles everyday of the week with full support from friendly and knowledgeable staff, enabling our garden to be a centre of the community and a place for all with full.


There is no intention to abandon or diminish the strengths of the current programme. It works so well! I aim to continue this and hope to add to it. There are no special qualifications needed, no commitment and total flexibility. If there is any training required it will be provided. As long as you would like to help us here we would like you to be a part of Ventnor Botanic Garden.


To all the garden volunteers, students, seed cleaners, potters and future tour guides, ‘meeter greeters’ and information assistants – thank you. We couldn’t and wouldn’t want to do it without you and we are most grateful. Something exciting is happening at Ventnor Botanic Garden, we would love for you to be a part of it.


If you have any comments or queries, if would like to return to volunteering or simply want to find out a bit more (especially about some of our new roles) please contact me at kate. ingrem@iow.gov.uk. It would be great to hear from you.


March/April


1 - Plant up your pots and containers ready for the summer.


2 - Push in twiggy pea sticks around annuals to support any that might flop over later in the season.


3 - Trim box bushes and topiary trees.


4 - Check over shrubs, bushes and climbers. Remove any frost damaged branches or stems by cutting back to a healthy outward facing bud.


5 - For fatter tulip flowers next year, dig up and store the bulbs before replanting them in the autumn.


6 - Boost blooms by feeding flowering plants with a high potash tomato feed.


7 - Pinch out the tips of large flowering dahlias as well as spray and pom pom Chrysanthemums to encourage bushiness.


8 - After flowering, prune Choisya ternata, Exochorda, Mahonia, Prunus triloba and Weigela. Cut back one third of the oldest stems to ground level (where they should rejuvenate and provide a stunning display in the future). Also, trim hedges of Lonicera nitida, privet and tamarisk.


9 - Shade and ventilate the greenhouse.


10 - Towards the end of June, take cuttings of busy lizzies, coleus, dahlias, diascia, fuchsia, pelargonium, petunia and verbena.


11 - Sow fast growing annuals direct into the ground for late summer colour.


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