Our weekly gardening columnist Geoff Stonebanks chairs the Driftwood Fundraising Group and has been organising the Macmillan Coastal Garden Trail since 2012. Coronavirus mean the event had to be cancelled in 2020 but will go ahead this year over the weekend of July 24 and 25. There will be 15 gardens to see, with nine in Brighton, five in Seaford and one in the village of Alfriston.
Three of the gardens are new for 2021. Geoff suggests planning one day of the weekend in the city and the other in and around Seaford. GEOFF STONEBANKS’ fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support, through the trail and other activities in and around his own garden, Driftwood in Seaford, has now enabled him to hand over more than £87,500 to the charity.
A CANCER survivor has started a poetry workshop to help other people who are going through treatment. Dr Niki Strange, a digital media consultant from Brighton, was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2019. During chemotherapy, Niki submitted one of her poems to a Brighton and Hove Arts Council competition and out of 700 entries across Sussex, she came second.
The Macmillan Horizon Centre in Brighton. After performing the poem live at a poetry festival at the Old Market theatre in Upper Market Street, Brighton, Niki said she wanted to use poetry to help others affected by cancer. She is now offering a 12-week online poetry workshop based at the Macmillan Cancer Centre in Bristol Gate, Brighton.
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A WONDERFUL plant to have in the garden at this very festive time of the year is the beautiful Camellia sasanqua ‘Yuletide’. I have one I bought in memory of a very good friend, about six years ago. It is planted in a large container on the north facing wall at the back of my house. Camellias are evergreen shrubs with simple, ovate, glossy, leathery leaves and showy flowers with solitary or clustered flowers early in the year. This particular one is a lovely bushy, evergreen shrub with glossy dark green leaves which provide a sumptuous backdrop for the brilliant-red single flowers with prominent yellow stamens. Flowers are generally borne in late winter and early spring. That said, mine has flowered every year at the start of December, through until late January.