SHOWS AND COMPETITIONS Various competitions are organized each year, sometimes in conjunction with other like-minded clubs, with the aim of gaining public interest and generally improving standards. These include major shows for exhibiting fruit, flowers, vegetables, cookery and handicrafts. ‘Mini-competitions’ are held at members’ meetings and competitions for the Best Kept Front Garden, Best Kept Allotment, Tallest Sunflower and Heaviest Pumpkin are run yearly. In recent years we have taken part in the Chelsea Flower Show the Essex County Show, Warwickshire Amateur Garden Show and the National Amateur Garden Show.

REGULAR BENEFITS include a monthly newsletter, monthly members meetings, with talks, demonstrations, quizzes and informal discussions related to the various aspects of gardening. Members have the opportunity to buy their horticultural requirements through the Society at discount prices. A small library of garden related books is available at meetings for members to borrow free of charge. Videos can be hired for two weeks for £2. Coach trips are arranged, this year to Cambridge Botanical Gardens, Anglesey Abbey in March, a weekend trip to see The Gardens of Wales in June and ‘The Old Vicarage’ at East Ruston, Norfolk including a visit to Read’s Nursery on the way, in August.

ALLOTMENTS The Society monitors the interests of allotment tenants and offers them practical help and advice with their gardening. The Society attends Town Council allotments meetings to advise and help bring about improvements where possible.

AFFILIATED ORGANISATIONS We are affiliated to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), Henry Doubleday Research Association (HYDRA), National Society of Allotments and Leisure Gardeners (NSALG), and the Essex Federation of Leisure Gardeners. This brings benefits including advice on specialist subjects and free entry to Wisley or Hyde Hall gardens when our coach trip outing there is made. Magazines from these organizations are held in the Society Library for all to see and borrow.

IN ADDITION The Society looks after a walled garden often referred to as Maldon’s secret garden. The Friary Walled Garden is bounded on three sides by a high red brick and stone wall, it is about one-fifth of an acre and the design suggests Georgian origin but the site may have been in cultivation far longer. Seven centuries ago there was monastic community next to the site and the garden may have been used for collections of medicinal and other useful herbs.

Since the early 19^th century the walled garden was private, rented by successive owners of the Friary to tenant gardeners who planted many fruit trees, some varieties now rare, vines and flowering plants. The last tenant was a keen plantsman and many of the ornamental plants now seen there may be attributed to his interest in the garden.

When the Horticultural Society became interested in its restoration the garden had fallen into disuse and was very overgrown. After years of neglect it presented a very daunting task. However work carried out by the Society revealed that the box hedges and many other long established and interesting plants still survived and theses flourished as soon as the sunlight was let in. The Georgian design has been maintained, it is laid out with gravel paths and box hedges surrounding small beds. The work is never ending and a team of volunteer gardeners looks after it.