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52 Phonebox Magazine | January 2025Club of the Month: Hardy Plant SocietyA friendly group of gardeners and ex-gardeners who enjoy learning more about plants.The Hardy Plant Society is for gardeners who particularly enjoy hardy, herbaceous plants. It was formed in 1957 and, worldwide, there are now about 5000 members with about 40 regional groups throughout the UK.The Northamptonshire group started in 1998. They have 10 meetings each year and pride ourselves on the quality of our speakers. At two of these meetings they have a group plant stall and a number of our speakers also bring interesting plants for sale. You can fi nd information about the programme at hpsnorthants.webador.co.uk.There is also a good national website www.hardy-plant.org.uk which will give you information about plants, publications, meetings, on-line talks and events.Last year they had talks about plants for diffi cult places, exotic plants, daisies and, last month, an excellent talk on making an interesting winter garden. They also had a plant stall at the Moulton Festival.This year%u2019s programme includes:4th January: Peter Skaggs, My life in Horticulture.1st February: Chris Day, The Good, Bad & Ugly.1st March: Andrew Board, Shady Character.5th April: Helen Picton, Plantaholics Paradise. Several members of the group open their gardens under the National Garden Scheme. Others just enjoy gardening and visiting gardens. You can come to a meeting as a visitor or become a member.Our meetings are usually held on the fi rst Saturday of the month (not July and August) at Moulton Community Centre, Reedings, Sandy Hill Lane, off Overstone Road, Moulton, NN3 7AX, starting at 2pm.Tree Festival eff ort for Ukraine causeThe Christmas Tree Festival was a great success and none more so than for Ukraine good causes.The festival%u2019s winning tree this year, and which attracted the most public votes, was from HelpUkraineBAMK. The brilliant idea for a festive tree was made out of bobble hats which will be sent to Ukraine to help keep children and families warm during winter.Church Reverend Hugh Reid said that all the trees in the festival, including the winning one, represented %u2018a light in the world%u2019 %u2013 something that the people of Ukraine could certainly do with.OLNEY UKRAINE AID NEWSLocal entertainer JulianSpoons man serves up donationSpoons player and local entertainer Julian Smith raised %u00a3160 for the Ukraine eff ort at the recent Dickens of a Christmas event last month, battling the rain to play his unique brand of music.Moving into 2025We will continue to highlight the plight of our friends from Ukraine and news from all the people of Olney, Newport Pagnell and the surrounding villages who do so much to help them. Please continue to send your news and views about the war to us here at Phonebox Magazine and our coverage will continue, as it has since the start of the confl ict.