麻豆约拍

It鈥檚 always great to be invited to a party, especially when there鈥檚 a chance that you鈥檙e going to meet like-minded people.

So we were delighted to find ourselves in Bangor with the roadshow recently, thanks to the members and friends of the Wednesday Friendship Club who meet regularly in the Halls behind 3rd Bangor Presbyterian Church and who on the day of our visit, were celebrating their third birthday.

The hall was bedecked, festooned and packed with people. Tables were dressed with pretty tablecloths, birthday garlands were draped creatively hither and thither and cake stands (so in fashion again) were groaning with the best home-made cakes and buns in Bangor.

While the bunting was there for the party, the cake stands and china cups are 鈥渄e rigeur鈥� for every meeting. As the Friendship Club website says 鈥渨e don鈥檛 do things by half you know鈥�.

Behind the top table which was reserved for Barbara Pilcher and Reg Maxwell, our panellists on the day, there were yet more birthday decorations and an illustrated fabric backcloth with allotment style his and hers sheds or perhaps they were privies! Either way, they were very pretty and the stage looked great. We鈥檇 love the person responsible to come on the road with us for future roadshows. It felt like Gardeners' Corner goes to Glastonbury.

As it happens, I used to march round with the Girls Brigade and play badminton in that very same hall, so it was lovely to see so many familiar faces and to be there for the birthday celebrations.

Given the warmth of the welcome and the numbers there on the day it was easy to see that the Wednesday Friendship Club have achieved a lot in three years, but there is more to them than buns and birthdays and for the last while they have supported and befriended a group of elderly people in Cuba who have no family support and for whom even basic nutrition is a challenge.

The questions on the day were many and varied and our thanks to everyone who submitted one.

Those which made their way into the programme included how to ensure that long stems remain when you are growing Sweet-pea, how to encourage Orchids to bloom again, how to keep Hydrangeas their original colour, in this case pink, why Busy Lizzies shrivelled and died in spite of best care, how to encourage a Plum Tree to bear fruit, suggestions please for a tree to grace a small garden where clay soil and shade are factors, how to improve a Castlewellan Gold badly affected by frost, how to keep a border trim and tidy and how to re-invigorate a Rhododendron.

The answers are all yours to inwardly digest via the Radio Ulster 麻豆约拍page where you can either listen again for the next seven days or download as a podcast and thank you to the thousands of you who regularly do just that.