Our speaker in May was Chris Collins whose career in horticulture has been incredibly varied and includes many TV appearances as well as being the resident the Blue Peter gardener. His presentations to us included his first year as head gardener at Westminster Abbey and his first gardening experience in Japan.
Luckily Miranda Janatka has shared her notes:
On lawns
• Moss is a result of heavy soil.
• Spike a lawn and fill with horticultural grit if it needs help draining.
• Make use of fine grass to plant in gaps between paving in order to soften edges.
• Kentucky blue mixed in with other grass seeds helps make a rich lawn.
• In autumn; spike, scarify and use only round washed sand on your lawn so that it provides good drainage (as opposed to other types of sand).
• For the perfect lawn, seed a lawn every 3 to 4 weeks in summer and don’t cut any shorter than 2.5 cm.
On plants
• Avoid putting tender plants out before the 1st of June (there is always the possibility of a frost in mid May).
• Keep your compost damp for the best results.
• Roses love horse manure and look out for Old English roses.
• Make plant feed made from nettles – leave weeds for 3 weeks to rot down and then dilute 1 part to 20 of water (there are plenty of nettles by the canal). Seaweed extract also very beneficial to plants.
De Beauvoir Gardeners 
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