Dear Members and Friends,
Just to remind you of our next gathering.
Auckland Horticultural Centre, 990 Great North Road, Western Springs.
Friends and visitors always welcome.
**TUESDAY NIGHT 23rd September 2014
Cup of tea/coffee at 7.15pm before meeting commences at 7.30pm.
**Do you have something to bring along for the interest table?
** A small time will be allocated to any question about tree cropping you might have. We will ask if any of our members can give an answer. Either ask during this time, or write down you question before hand and pass it in, or, email it in.
Speaker Julian McCurdy from Beez Thingz: Serviced organic hive rentals & sales . “Julian McCurdy is an urban beekeeping specialist who is trying to develop more bee friendly beekeeping practices. Using design and technology, he hopes to breed a new wave of back yard beekeepers.” Hopefully he will bring some of his new design bee hives to show off.
Grafting morning (apples and pears) Saturday 27th September 9am – midday.
Auckland Horticultural Centre. Bring some cash (gold coin entry to help pay for hall rental) –and you will be able to take home your potted grafts at $7 each. Bring a fixed blade knife (Stanley knife is good) and a pair of secateurs. Some band aid type plaster for cut fingers!
The day will have a teaching session followed by grafting practise with supervisors available.
Parallel, to the grafting session for newbies, will be club grafting of rootstock by members in order to build up the club resource of grafts that at later dates can be available for sale.
There will be willow for you to practise on. Root stock for the apples is M793 -a Northern Spy derivative, larger tree, good on clay with resistance to Wooly aphids, and M26 – Dwarf fruit tree growing from 2-3m recommended for small gardens or for espaliering.
There will also be quince rootstock for the pears.
There will be lots of different varieties of scion wood to choose from! A list maybe available in the next email (members only).
It would be great if just a few members could help with the food supply for the rolling morning tea.