October, November, December 2022
Sometimes things get away from you. Like the last three months.
Our Open Garden went ahead on the 30th October, amid wild rainy weather, which, thankfully held off the actual day leaving us with some much needed sunshine.
Our preparations for the actual day were constantly thwarted – the ground was sodden leaving us unable to weed and generally inclined to do nothing. Sometimes natures forces your hand and we had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that visitors were going to have to take the garden as it was – warts and all. Pavers were placed on the walkways that had disappeared under water, the entrance to the parking area was basically paved within 30 minutes as an emergency last measure for access and fingers were crossed that people would venture out because we had a lot of plants to sell and Jenny was adamant that she did want to have to spend the Summer watering them.
We had sent the plant list out early to our Newsletter subscribers who requested certain plants be held for them so at least they would come. And they did. Along with more people than we had hoped for. Plants sales peaked early as is consistent with every other Open Garden offering plants, as gardeners swamped the table looking for the rare, the unusual and the, occasional, bargain. We did have some wonderful plants, even if I do say so myself. It can be frustrating though as you know how wonderful a plant is but standing there with a small tuft of a plant trying to convey the beauty held within said tuft to a sceptical buyer is generally very trying.
Having said all that, it was a wonderful day. Our visitors were delightful and enthusiastic, and it was lovely to put some faces to Instagram handles. The garden was full of Peonies, which were particularly fabulous this year and the weather held some things back that were usually in flower but allowed others to shine. A big thank you to all who visited the garden and appreciated the amount of work it takes to put one of these events on.
And it does take work, especially a garden as big as this one with just the two of us so to be honest, we were over gardening for a little while and took a break (well, as much of a break as we could) over November and December. The weeds are sky high, but the Clematis and Lilies are flowering giving ample distraction from the work that needs to be done but, for now, writing this on the 30th December 2022, that’s 2023’s problem…