My task was to sit in with the Woody Committee and assist with anything that was required, e.g. passing plant specimens around, getting chairs etc.
The Woody Committee had some interesting members, including many heavyweights of the horticultural world like Roy Lancaster, Mark Flanagan (Head Gardener of Savil Gardens and Windsor), John Grimshaw - director of the Yorkshire arboretum and Tony Kirkham Head of Arboretum at Kew. They were an enthusiastic and lively group, the meeting was well chaired by Mark, who kept it focused and not veering off topic too much when everyone got too excited.
Mark related to them, new members the main big news from the RHS including visitors numbers and highlights of their KIPs. There were comments that certain important elements were being forgotten and that the RHS should be careful not to negate the 'horticulture' side of things.
They talked about events and activities they were involved with, e.g. a RHS members day at Westonbirt and trips that they were going to do in the upcoming years. They tried to clear on disputes between hardiness and AGM matters, queries on Quercus ilex being on the invasive list of DEFRA, news re the Mahonia summit hosted by Dan Hinckley in Seattle and part of his interest in looking at Orphan plant groups - plant groups without any societies and the unexplored possibilities of them.
They're going to visit Chris Lane's Hamamelis nursery on Tuesday - they reckoned peak time for it was 10 days ago.
Someone brought in specimens of Edgeworthia chrysantha and E. chrysantha 'Grandiflora for confirmation of identification of the latter and the mysteries of the identification of a Camellia sp. at Hilliers which is thought to be wrongly labelled Camelia japonica 'Jupiter'. Derek Spicer of Kilworth nursery gave a talk on winter interest conifers, many were very unusual - starting with foliage that stays green in winter e.g. Crytomeria japonica Elegans Group 'Viridis', blues to new yellowy foliage dwarf kinds, many bred in Holland or Poland to dark red brown e.g. Podocarpus alpinus 'Chocolate Box'.