Gardening: Cuttings

THE CROSS-CHANNEL tunnel makes it astonishingly easy to get across to Holland. On one recent trip, we left London at a not-too-hideous hour in the morning and were in Rotterdam by 10am, just as the museum we wanted to go to was opening. So the International Specialist Nursery Days at Bingerden in the Netherlands are closer than you may think. They take place from 19-21 June at a pretty house and garden owned by the van Weede family, whose brainchild the show is. Marianne Joosten from The Netherlands will be showing hemerocallis, Naturwuchs from Germany are bringing dianthus and erysimums, Scott's of England will be taking across their best clematis, and the Silene nursery from Belgium will be specialising in unusual annuals. The show is open on Friday, 1-6pm, and on Saturday and Sunday, 10am-6pm. Entrance costs f15 (about pounds 5). Huis Bingerden is near the town of Doesburg in Gelderland, the eastern part of the Netherlands. Get there via the A12 to Utrecht; take exit 29 signposted Zevenaar/Didam and follow directions to Doesburg. Bingerden is well signposted.

THE MIDLAND Bonsai Society is holding a show at the Birmingham Botanic Garden tomorrow (11am-5pm). Leave time to wander round the gardens themselves. They were laid out in 1829 by one of my heroes, the polymath and garden guru of the time, John Claudius Loudon. The plant hunter `Chinese' Wilson was a student here towards the end of the last century, and there is a collection of the many fine plants that he was responsible for introducing to the country. The gardens are at Westbourne Road, Edgbaston, two miles south west of the city. For information call 0121-454 1860.