Bridport WI Hall
Speaker Caradoc Doy
This is a welcome return of this horticulturist and authority on the history of the Veitch Nurseries of Exeter & Chelsea. This talk will give us a brief history of a remarkable nursery which sent 23 plant collectors to many countries, mainly during the Victorian period. It highlights some of the well-known and interesting varieties introduced by the pioneering plant hunters who discovered many hundreds of new species. So successful were they that there is scarcely a garden in the British Isles that does not contain a plant derived from their introductions.
Caradoc Doy trained at Bicton College of Agriculture (1986) and Pershore College of Horticulture (1987-1990), and following a career with some leading nurseries and garden centres around the UK, is a horticulturist and garden speaker. Caradoc has become an authority on the history of the Veitch nurseries and their plant hunters, which led him to publish a centenary edition of Hortus Veitchii by James H. Veitch in 2006.
In 2003, he staged a Veitch exhibit at St. Bridget Nurseries, Exeter and at the Devon County Show in 2004 which received a Large Gold Medal (both on behalf of St. Bridget Nurseries). Caradoc was featured on BBC TV in May 2012 where he helped stage an exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for Plant Heritage, winning a Silver Gilt Medal and meeting HM The Queen.
