THE speaker at our June meeting of the society was Phillip Aubury, director of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

His subject was, "Labour Saving gardens" and we were given lots of tips to reduce our work load in the garden by choosing plants and tools wisely and even by the careful use of some chemicals.

Mr Aubury has many years of gardening behind him and was able to pass on his experience and his obvious love of gardening.

He calls his garden "his green gym", as it's his means of keeping fit, but he advised us to plan our gardens in the labour saving ways in order to be able to get the most pleasure from them. Our next meeting is a coach trip to Wisley this Saturday.

The society meets on the second Thursday of each month at the Friends Meeting House, in Sandhills Road, Barnt Green.

The August meeting takes the form of an evening trip to Burcot Grange, Greenhill, Blackwell, using our own transport.