WHATEVER your plans for the spring and summer, be sure the Great Outdoors guides you to one or more of the UK’s super gardens – and helps you to fill the charity treasure chest.
These are gardens which open to the public under the aegis of the National Garden Scheme and there are around 3,500 of them throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
You can pick up a Yellow Book for your county for free from garden centres, libraries, some stores and other places of educational interest, so do keep an eye open.
It’s an astonishing feat of public generosity which last year amassed a phenomenal total of £3,403,960 for deserving causes.
These included the medical charities Marie Curie, Macmillan Cancer Support and Hospice UK (all £450,000), Carers’ Trust (£350,000), Queen’s Nursing Institute (£425,000) and Parkinson’s UK (£350,000).
Twelve further charities, among them English Heritage, Mencap and Support for Community Gardens, all received “multi-zero suffix” sums from garden-goers.
Some gardens have already had their gates oiled, painted and swung open to let the early enthusiasts in.
► Gorgeous gardens: Top – A lovely lakeside scene bordered by primulas at Marwood Hill, near Barnstaple, Devon. At the other end of England is this stunning scene from a garden in Morpeth, Northumberland. Picture courtesy of NGS. Below – the 2024 NGS handbook.
What I especially admire about these frameworks of beauty and inspiration is that the NGS is anything but the preserve of grand houses, rolling acres, sweeping lawns and extensive bedding schemes.
Far from it! Many gardens are modest in size, unpretentious patchworks yet bursting with colour, creativity, artistry and pride, everything you see the products of years of loving care.
My own county of Devon has, possibly, the highest total of NGS openings of any county in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. If town or village group gardens are separated, I totted up an impressive 126.
Devon, of course, is sizeable, virtually split in two by the brooding hills of Dartmoor and stretching north to the heather-laden valleys of Exmoor which it shares with Somerset.
Over many years of horticultural scribing, I’ve enjoyed numerous visits to inspirational NGS gardens, mainly in the north of the county.
Yet you can travel from Lynton in the far-flung north to Salcombe, around 100 miles away in the deep south – and everything in between embracing Devon’s contribution to NGS charities which last year topped £193,000.
Expanding nationwide, a portfolio of more than 3,500 gardens is sure to suit every taste, every appetite for the rare and unusual, the quirky and the architectural, the small or the stately – from one of my favourite counties, Northumberland, at the tip of northern England, south-east to Kent – the so-called garden of England – and cross-country to the rugged far west of Cornwall.
Remember too that many garden owners have drinks, cream teas, snacks and surprises on offer as well as picnic areas . . . and plant stalls ready for you to plug that overdue gap in the bed.
Coupled with an easy admission fee of around £5-£6, what’s there not to like about NGS?
That garden gate is ready and waiting for you to unlatch!
Graham's Garden Buddies 