Ynyswen
Gardening Club History
Ynyswen Gardening Club was formed in the Royal Oak Hotel in the early 1960’s and for many years was known as Royal Oak Gardening Club. Many older readers will remembers some of our founder members. Councillor Arthur True, Reg Purdle who was manager of Treorchy Co-op grocery dept, Terry Rowe who had a greengrocers shop in Treorchy to name but a few.
Later John Haskins School of Motoring and later a Treorchy Councillor was our Treasurer followed by John Irwin. Bill Davies was also secretary for many years. Norman Spencer was another of our prominent members and looked after our store shed for many years. Gwylim Reed who later became steward of Treherbert Conservative club was our secretary for many years too.
In 1975 I
took over as secretary and Dennis Fletcher as Chairman, we are still in
post today. We have had two
treasurers since John Irwin’s days, Tom Thomas and the present Treasurer
is Dennis Price. Our Presidents were Dick Waters, the Tynewydd baker and
Councillor Arthur True up until his death; our current president is Mike
Thompson the well renowned rose grower from Llwynypia. Our store shed
manager is Les Hill who has been in post for more than 20 years now.
Our members
have enjoyed success at national flower shows with Dahlias, Roses,
Chrysanthemums, Carnations and Vegetables. There have been World Records,
and Guinness Book of Records entries. Several of our members have had
plants named after them. Quite
a few of us have won in national competitions.
Our
membership has been 70 to 100 members in recent years.
Although the vast majority live in the upper part of Rhondda Fawr
we have members in Aberdare, Tonyrefail, Skewen,
We hold an annual flower show. This year’s event will be held at Ynyswen Welfare Hall in early September. We also hold a horticulture lecture programme over the winter months, this year we had very good attendances for all lectures.
May I say
that until my retirement from
We had one
coach trip to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Garden at Wisley Surrey
last year but to date we have nothing planned for this year yet.
Since our move away from the Royal Oak Hotel we have held meetings
at Treorchy Social Club until its demise and thanks to Ystradfechan Bowls
Clubs generosity we now hold our meetings and lectures there*.
* 2010 news update - please note the Ynyswen Gardening Club now meets in the Treorchy Conservative Club
Our store
shed is situated in
May I say a personal criticism of many garden centres is that they don’t stock fertiliser in sizable bags suitable for an Allotment holder, neither do they stock materials suitable for the specialist grower. Well we do. We usually order in excess of a ton of seed potatoes.
Our store
shed is open from 3pm to 4pm on Sundays throughout the year when Les Hill
and John Davies are on duty and during the lighter nights from 6pm to 7pm
on Wednesdays when Dennis Fletcher and Ken Williams (Rock& Roll) are
in attendance.
Personally
I would like to see more lady members, one thing I feel we could certainly
improve on is the social side of the club, and a few new ideas would be
most welcome. If anyone wants
to join please contact me.
We have a
good relationship with other gardening organisation in the area,
Treherbert Gardening Society, Rhondda Rose Society, Tonyrefail Gardening
Club and a number of local allotment groups like Caermawr and Pentwyn.
Also the Rhondda Group of Allotments.
We feel this is very important and some of our members are also
members of these other organisations.
Just to
finish after 42 years in professional horticulture and now retired I am
always available for free gardening advice to anyone in the locality if I
can help.
Have a good Gardening Year
Regards
Ivor Mace
Secretary Ynyswen Gardening Club, April 2009
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