I spent several years as chairman of EAGG then co-chairman with Fiona Pearson. I've moved house and had the opportunity to create a new garden several times, learning by experience, trial and error.
My love of gardening stems from growing up in Scotland where nature diaries, bird watching and being outside were essential elements of life.
My love of gardening started when my sister and I had our own patches of earth to plant and nurture. This planted a seed that has stayed with me through my life.
I volunteered for the EAGG Membership Secretary role in 2023.
I spent thirty years creating a two acre garden and filling it with over sixty different varieties of old-fashioned roses.
I love being in my garden and I love garden design. Sadly I am not the most competent gardener, but I love learning about gardens and gardening and visiting gardens. I have just taken on a new garden, wish me luck.
After designing many inner London back yard gardens, Alison is now wrestling with ten times as much space in inner Stowmarket.
I get a huge sense of joy from gardening and being outdoors. I feel that gardening is so inclusive, a wonderful way to express creativity and to contribute to your environment. I mainly tinker about in my own garden making a mess, but the point should be to enjoy it!
I have loved gardening for many years even when I gardened in a tiny London courtyard.
Some 20 years ago, wanting a change of career I completed the RHS General certificate in Horticulture, City and Guilds in Amenity Horticulture and Planting Design at Capel Manor College. For a time I enjoyed running a small garden and planting design business in North London. Since I moved to Suffolk 15 years I have been able you put all that practice to good use creating my own cottage garden. As the saying goes "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow".
In the 1960s a group of eminent Suffolk-based gardeners founded the British Iris Society. Among them was Jenny Robinson, described by Roy Lancaster as the ‘Grande Dame of Horticulture’, a former ‘Bletchley Park girl’, and an expert on lilies whose garden was featured in the classic Rosemary Verey book ‘An Englishwoman’s Garden’. The first two meetings of the Society were held at Benton End, Hadleigh. Soon it was decided to broaden its scope and in 1968 it was re-named the East Anglian Garden Group. Among early members were Sir Cedric Morris, artist and plantsman whose reputation has grown in recent years, Tony Venison then gardening editor of Country Life magazine, and Ivan Dickings chief propagator of Notcutts Nurseries.
Over nearly sixty years EAGG has grown, moved venues several times and attracted an enviable range of speakers covering almost every aspect of horticulture. Now based at the village hall at Monks Eleigh it continues to flourish, and we look forward to many more decades of meeting up with fellow gardeners and enjoying all things gardening.
My love of gardening stems from growing up in Scotland where nature diaries, bird watching and being outside were essential elements of life.
My father-in-law James Pearson, a dedicated and passionate gardener played a significant part in rekindling my nascent interest in gardening. On moving from London he gave me a greenhouse and I have never looked back. I am not a plantswoman as such and I have never done a ‘gardening course’, I am simply a passionate amateur gardener who breaks the rules and quite often gets away with it!
My greenhouse and garden are my sanctuary and sanity. To my joy my son is now gardening and I am lining up the grandchildren too.
The EAGG is a wonderful amalgam of friendship and knowledge with visits and talks. I hope that my enthusiasm for EAGG and what it does will help to ensure its continued success.
My name is Louise Chambury and I have joined EAGG as Treasurer from October 2020. My love of gardening started when my sister and I had our own patches of earth to plant and nurture. This planted a seed that has stayed with me through my life.
I have always had an interest in the design side and followed this up by doing the KLC Gardening Design course in Chelsea and I was lucky enough to have 3 gardens of my own which I could plan from scratch and I have designed several more.
I am really looking forward to learning more through my involvement with EAGG and in seeing the marvellous gardens that people have created , very often from nothing at all.
I volunteered for the EAGG Membership Secretary role in 2023.
I’m a keen amateur gardener and love the creative process that is gardening. I don’t have a grand design for my garden but am a bit of a plant fan as there always seems to be a another plant I’d love to add to my garden. Due to limited space I have to add and then edit plants. I think those changes maintain my interest as do the inspiring speakers at EAGG meetings. Then there is the never ending challenge of plants that haven’t read the books!
I spent thirty years creating a two acre garden and filling it with over sixty different varieties of old- fashioned roses.
I get inspiration from visiting other people’s gardens (often with other members of EAGG) and writing about them for The English Garden, Homes and Gardens and other national magazines. Having recently down-sized to a town garden I’m learning that small can also be beautiful – and when space is limited you have to curb your passion for plants and accept that less is more!