Horticultural society

ON THE evening of Monday, 6 June, the Cardiganshire Horticul-tural Society in conjunction with the Ceredigion branch of the Welsh Historic Gardens Trust held a joint meeting in the William Davies Hall at IBERS. Around 70 people were present to hear award-winning author Andrea Wulf tell the fascinating tale of a small group of 18th century naturalists who made England a nation of gardeners - the story of a garden revolution that began in America with the farmer John Bartram, who transformed the English landscape with the introduction of hundreds of American trees and shrubs. Tuesday, 14 June, was a day of pouring rain in Aberystwyth, but a party of over 30 intrepid CHS members enjoyed a very good day trip to two contrasting gardens in Denbighshire where, despite travelling through heavy showers, the visits themselves were little troubled by the weather. The first visit of the day was to Dibley’s Nursery near Ruthin, where the founder of the acclaimed business specialising in the growing of Streptocarpus, Rex Dibley told the story of the development of the business over the last 25 years, before the party toured the two large production glasshouses and the propagation unit. The visit ended with a tour of the 10-acre arboretum garden where many interesting trees and shrubs were growing - reflecting Rex Dibley’s botanical training. After lunch at Rhug Farm Estates restaurant, the party travelled five miles across the valley to visit Aberclwyd Hall, where Irene Brown welcomed them to her delightful garden with its wonderful views over the Clwydian Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Three more trips are left in the 2016 programme. The first of these is an evening visit to Arthur Newman’s garden at Southgate followed by supper at Plas Antaron on Wednesday, 6 July, and the second, a week later, to Hampton Court Gardens near Hereford and the five-acre Ashley Farm garden at Stansbach. Further information on the society’s activities is available from the secretary, David Hughes on 01974 241458.

Rotary Club

EACH year Aber Rotary makes an award to a young person who intends to undertake some form of humanitarian work overseas.The recipient this year of the Lionel White scholarship was Tesni Clare from Borth, a former student of Penglais School.At this week’s meeting, Tesni spoke of her conservation work in Costa Rica, Central America. The country has one of the most progressive environmental policies in the world where 25 per cent of the country’s area is in protected National Parks, one of which is Corcovado, renowned for its bio-diversity.Tesni’s main task was to survey the wildlife in some of the parks which meant an early start particularly to study the bird population – the scarlet macaw and the keel-billed toucan are particularly exotic.Like other wildlife, they are threatened by climate change, where temperature rise affects the flora and insects as well as by poaching and deforestation. Another early morning task was to record the species types and activities of primates. There are four species of monkey including the endangered spider monkey. These primates also face threats for example from the black market pet trade.Tesni also took part in patrols of the olive and green turtle, the latter is becoming endangered. The threats here are removal of eggs from their nests, poaching and ingestion of plastic litter. Turtles travel up to 2,000km from their nest to their feeding sites, but always return to the same place to lay eggs which can number a hundred a night. To curb population decline, turtle hatcheries have been established.Her illustrated talk featured pictures of the wide range of wildlife which enhanced an excellent presentation. Her last slide was a thank you to Rotary for the financial help given for the visit which had added to her life-long passion for the environment. In thanking Tesni, president Dr John Harris said he was sure that she had benefited greatly from her experiences and wished her the very best in her future studies at Cambridge University.

U3A

MANY members of U3A heard the talk given by Dr Martin Bates on 16 June; the topic was ‘The sub-merged forests on our foreshores’. We were given a new appreciation of the astonishing range of scientific expertise which is nowadays required to reveal the complexity of this subject, for it is not only forests which have been submerged by the changing levels of the oceans, which have been caused by the natural fluctuations in climate change. This constant activity by the seas around Britain has meant that many coastal sites now yield, on excavation of the sea bed, valuable evidence of the preservation of flints, plant remains, pollens, beetles, bones, old river channels, and, very recently, some footprints, judged to be of children and adolescents living around one million years ago. The advent of modern technology has of course been invaluable in these discoveries, as has the data obtained from the drilling activities of oil and gas companies.The intense human interest in these discoveries is suggested by the existence, world wide, of legendary stories about the reasons for the creation of these features of the natural environment; perhaps the most well-known is that of Atlantis. Recently, scientific interest has been influential in ensuring continual reliable knowledge of these features, and many sites now employ the services of geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists, etc so, inevitably, the thorough examination of these sites has become expensive, and time consuming. Nevertheless, strong local interest has been shown in the Bronze Age red deer antlers, recently recovered from Borth beach. After final records have been made of them they will be on permanent display in Aberystwyth museum.The next meeting, the last one before the summer break, will be on 21 July, when Michael McCarthy will be talking on ‘Making New Opera’. As usual, this will be held in Morlan at 2.30pm, and all are welcome.

Choral society

MEMBERS of the Aberystwyth Choral Society are enjoying their long summer break following their successful performance of the Verdi’s Requiem at the end of April. However, all the choristers were very saddened to hear of the death after a short illness, of Michael Lansdon, a much-loved chorister and one of the two deputy conductors of the society. Michael, a much travelled Ameri-can had settled in Ceredigion, and had been singing with the society in the bass section for eight years. Being a very good musician, he always sat close to the tenors and could be heard helping them out on many occasions! Conductor David Russell Hulme and a good number of choristers were at the funeral in Aberystwyth Crematorium on Friday, 17 June, and the music played was all that Michael liked and enjoyed. Fellow choristers, Gareth Kelly and Horst Holstein paid tribute to him for his work with the society. Michael will be very much missed. The society’s deep sympathy was extended to his widow Gwenda and all his family.