About DBHS

What we do

Allotments

DBHS administers the allotments in Dalgety Bay, of which there are 48. To qualify for an allotment and to go on the waiting list for an allotment, you must be a member of the ‘Society and be resident in Dalgety Bay or Hillend.

Seeds

We buy seeds and garden sundries from Kings at a discount. Kings is used by many of the Allotment Holders who find them most reliable. The catalogues are made available towards the end of the year and members send in their orders to a central point. The Grapevine will let members now the details. After the cut-off date, the orders are collated and sent away. When the bulk order is received, the seed packets are spread across the floor and the whole order is checked. Individual orders are then made up. Some orders will still have outstanding items, but members are not asked to pay until their order is complete. The more we order, the bigger the discount. DBHS will normally pass on a 50% discount to the membership.

Cheese and Wine

Our Annual Cheese and Wine social evening is held in February each year. This is our biggest meeting of the year when up to one hundred members join the party. There seems to be a format established for this evening, which everyone enjoys. If they didn't enjoy it, they wouldn't be there would they? The day starts when we visit Tesco to buy all the food, wine and soft drink for the evening. The cheese has already been cut into cubes and the other food is passed out to members who have volunteered to prepare it. DBHS now has its’ own glasses, which is much better than hiring them, except for the washing up that is. At around 18:45 we can access the hall to set up. Soon all the tables are up and decorated and the food spread out and the wine ready to be served. What a spread there is. The Chairman then welcomes everyone, gives any intimations, cracks some jokes, which are, he is happy to say, laughed at. Then the evening is up and running. Members and their guests help themselves to food and wine and the hall is alive with chatter. The Chairman tells another story and then the quiz. The quiz has established itself as part of the Cheese and Wine and probably something to be groaned at. I know that, when I go through the answers later, I will be heckled. More chatter, a couple of spot prizes and another joke. Then the evening is wound up. Everyone has enjoyed themselves and after a very busy day. It is exhausting but we will do it all again next year.

Plant Sale

The Annual Plant Sale has been established on an afternoon in the middle of May. The Plant Market supplies all the bedding plants and shrubs for the Plant Sale. The shrubs are supplied on a sale or return basis. Most of the tables are taken up by plants donated by members and we also sell garden sundries like canes, gloves, plant labels and so on. The doors open from 1:00pm to 3:00pm and sometimes there is a queue. Dalgety Bay Community Centre is a mass of people for the first 45 minutes then it dies down completely. It livens up again for about half an hour when people realise it is on and then dies down for the last half hour until 3:00pm when we close. It is amazing the number of plants that can be sold on two hours. We take orders for shrubs as well if they are not available on the day. There is a wee tearoom for customers to take refreshments and have a natter. Any bedding plants not sold at the Annual Plant Sale will be kept and taken to the Dalgety Bay Gala in mid June, where DBHS has a stand.

Dobbies

DBHS Members, like any other members of the public, can join the Dobbies Gardening Club. See more information on the Dobbies website.

Equipment

Members of DBHS may hire gardening equipment, free of charge. The equipment we have includes a hedge trimmer, petrol strimmer, garden vac, shredder, pressure washer and tree lopper. Canes, plant labels, polythene, fleece and other sundries may be purchased at a reasonable price.

Affiliations

Dalgety Bay Horticultural Society (DBHS) is affiliated to the Scottish Gardeners Forum (SGF), an organisation which exists to bring together horticultural societies and gardening clubs to share ideas and promote horticulture in Scotland. We are also affiliated to the National Vegetable Society (NVS), whose name speaks for itself.

Garden Visits

We encourage our membership to visit "yellow book gardens" in Fife. "Yellow book gardens" are those gardens which are opened to the public under Scotland's Garden Scheme. They normally open at weekends and an entrance charge, which goes to a charity is usual. DBHS Allotments has been included in the Yellow Book for a couple of years now along with a private garden in Dalgety Bay. It is nice to welcome members of the public from Dalgety Bay and further afield to show off our allotments.

Meetings

DBHS holds monthly meetings for its members and any prospective members who happen to come along. The meetings are held In Dalgety Bay Community Centre on the first Friday of each month at 7:30pm. They last approximately two hours and after the presentation members enjoy a cup of tea or coffee and a chat. We also have the raffle. It's quite a social evening and many people look forward to it. The February meeting takes the form of the Annual Cheese and Wine. Our July meeting is normally our Annual coach trip. This is to take advantage of the weather and long evenings. Our Annual Show takes place in September and our Annual General Meeting is held in December. At all other meetings, a guest speaker is invited to give a presentation or demonstration in his or her subject. The presentations are given by guest speakers on a variety of topics of interest to the membership. Often there are slides and sometimes we have a practical demonstration.

Coach Trip

Our Annual Coach Trip takes place in July. Members enjoy a subsidised trip to some place of interest, usually not too far away. We usually get a guided tour of wherever we visit and some sort of refreshments. Our coach trips in the past have taken us to Craigencalt Ecology Centre at Kinghorn Loch, Kellie Castle near Anstruther, Willie Duncan's Garden at Drumeldrie, Suntrap Garden at Gogarburn to the west of Edinburgh and we once had a guded tour of the Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. The guides there are volunteers and they know the garden well. It was one of the best tours we have been on and we were the only people in the whole garden. Sometimes we can arrange a visit to a garden that was the subject of an earlier in the year talk.

Outings

Outings usually come from suggestions put forward by members and DBHS has arranged many outings for members in the past. Many years ago, we ran annual visits to the Ayr Flower Show. We visited the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988, the World Floral Art Exhibition and Competition, where one of our members won a prize, was visited. We put on a coach trip to Gardening Scotland for many years but sadly, this went to liquidation in 2020.