It was a hot and sunny July afternoon for our Garden Club monthly meeting. Thank you, Anna for accommodating us at such short notice. As evidenced by the large number of attendees, the interest was high for a visit to your garden. We were all also pleased to see quite a few new faces that attended as guests, and we look forward to welcoming them to the club should they be interested in joining us.

Anna’s hillside space is divided into a propagation and nursery area for her landscaping business and a delightful garden section, with an overlooking elevated back patio, for some quality R and R with those stunning hills as a majestic, tropical backdrop. It would be remis of me not to mention the amazing, flowering Bauhenia variegata (orchid) tree that one could see in an adjacent garden.

Hillside gardening is always a challenge, but Anna managed to pull it off very well with beautiful specimen plants, both potted on the patio and in the garden.

The new president brought the club up to speed with ongoing projects, upcoming fund raisers and the 2024 calendar due for launch in a couple of months’ time.  A suggestion book was also introduced so all with ideas and suggestions could write within, and these discussed at following committee meeting.

Anna shared her knowledge of landscaping with a riveted audience, with many questions being asked, stimulated by her animated and well-informed talk. Thanks again to Anna for this and thanks too for emphasizing that gardens need not be picture perfect to host a meeting of the Garden Club of Trinidad. We look forward to others offering to host because of this talk.

The show bench for July was Euphorbias. This is a large family of plants including plants as varied as crotons, pedilanthus and euphoria milli or Crown-of- Thorns. This variety proved a challenge to our judges, Katie Bennett and Chancy Moll but of course, they rose to the challenge and delivered measured and knowledgeable judgments. The growers of the winning entrants were rewarded with gorgeous prizes from the bromeliad family supplied by Kelly Anderson of Exotic Garden Design Plant Nursery.

Anna was presented with a beautiful bromeliad also, as a thank you from the Club for hosting us so graciously.

All mingled, chatted and laughed over some tasty finger foods and a drink or two before parting.

The next meeting will be on Saturday 19^th August at the home of Cheryl Lee Loy. The show bench with be Philodendrons. Please carpool for this meeting as parking is limited.