September 2010
St Fiacre (the Patron Saint of Gardeners) made sure that it was a fine day for our VIAGM (Very Informal Annual General Meeting) on his Feast Day in August this year.
We were warmly welcomed for our meeting into Glenys Gray's beautiful new home in Bellawongarah.
This usually takes all of 20 minutes and then we enjoy ourselves being guided around a lovely garden, talking to the gardener about her (or his) plans for its development and admiring the winter foliage - of course in the northern hemisphere it would be the height of summer and gardens in full bloom.
After this we eat a delicious lunch, prepared by us all, enjoy lots of gardening talk and make plans for the coming year.
St Fiacre was born in 7th century Ireland ("Fiachre" was an ancient pre-Christian Irish name) and he lived in County Kilkenny where he developed skills with herbs and became known as a healer.
Although he wanted to live the life of a hermit, disciples flocked to learn from him and forced him to flee to France where he asked the Bishop of Meaux for some land at Breuil.
There he built an oratory dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a hospice for travellers, but he lived apart in the forest in a cell, doing manual labour in his garden.
He died on 18th August 670 C.E.
He is always pictured with a spade and a basket of vegetables.
We would love to have you join us on any of our casual visits to local gardens, talks by experts in the field and guided tours around specialist estates.
Come and try by ringing 4465 1756 and finding out what we are doing in coming months and deciding what may interest you.
You can also keep in touch by adding your name to the email list, thus ensuring that you also receive all the offers of courses and Paddock Days held by the specialists.
Lee Sharam