THE speaker for January was Duncan Straw, who has a small family-run business called Perhill Nursery at Great Witley.

This was established in 1988 mainly as a wholesale concern supplying rarer and more unusual perennials, alpines and herbs to garden centres.

However, he decided that as his passion was for collecting and growing as wide a range of plants as possible (at the moment this consists of 2,600 species and cultivars), this did not fit in with modern garden centres; he decided to concentrate on retail and mail order customers.

He does not grow the latest plants in fashion at the moment but prefers to sell more well-established and rare varieties. All his plants are propagated and sold at the nursery by himself and none are bought in from anywhere else.

He gave a very informative illustrated talk on Plants for Awkward Places, which was divided into four categories as follows: hot/dry conditions, dry shade, cool damp shade and heavy boggy cold soils.

We were all given a list of all the plants he talked about so we could tick any that appealed to us. After he had finished his talk there was a very large display of plants for sale.

The speaker on March 1 will be Philip Aubrey, who will be telling us all about the history of Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

Our club meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7.30pm at Wythall Village Hall, Alcester Road, near Beckett's Island. Visitors are always welcome.