What do you love about Open Gardens I was once asked. What don’t I like. I’m nosey. I like to see other people’s gardens. Their planting schemes. Their plants. Gain some ideas. New plant ideas. Oh. And cake. There’s always great cake. Except in lockdowns when visits were limited. And no cake.

We missed one of my favourite gardens this summer. Philippa Burroughs garden has given me so much inspiration over the visits. New tulip varieties. Planting ideas. Plants from the plant stall. Oh. And tea and cake in one of the fabulous black barns.

I’d told Ian that I needed to make up for it when we were in Somerset and go to some new gardens. One good thing to come out of lockdowns has been Ian’s interest in the garden. Looking at plants and suggesting that they would be good in our garden. It’s been a win win situation. He has worked just as hard as me in combatting the dreaded weed collection that grew out of five months of neglect.

Having looked at the NGS app I found exactly what I was looking for. A garden I’d tried to see previously but we were never here when it opened. I’d first heard of Special Plants and Derry Watkins from two people. Georgie Newberry from Common Farm Flowers had mentioned her to me regarding seeds when I was looking for something. Then I’d admired some Honesty Corfu Blue which was planted en masse at a neighbours garden. Always generous with advice she said I will let you have 6 plants as I know you will look after them. I did look after them. I nurtured them. But the wet cold winter drowned them. All six. I hadn’t the courage to tell her as I didn’t want to be a disappointment. The truth is I have never told her. Those plants were grown from seed from Special plants and Derry and my neighbour are friends.

Special plants is roughly an hour from the cottage. Unless the bridge in Bath is closed and you go on a tortuous route around the city. Through the city. So it took longer. Then down a single track road which looked like we were going nowhere. I couldn’t hear Ian breathe. I suspect like me he was waiting to meet an oncoming tractor. We didn’t.

Have you ever stepped into a garden and thought you’d died and gone to heaven. Into a garden you could easily have as your own. Tulips at Ulting wick does that for me. As does the exotic planting after the tulips have been lifted. This garden adds to the list. Not showy. Just beautifully planted. Gorgeous sweeping borders. As you arrive you are given a map of the garden. A planting list of “ plants looking good on Open day July 2021.

A plan with numbered beds with the accompanying plant list detailing the contents of the beds. Allium Alley. Box ball bed. Lemon and LIme. Black and white beds. Twenty three beds in total.

Of course I still had to ask what something was in one of the beds.

The variety of plants and the colours were amazing. The views from various points in the garden were something else. There was so much to take in that I know I will have to go again before the summer is over to make sure I see things I missed this time.

There is an office in one part of the garden with an amazing green roof. Just adjacent to the vegetable garden. The views from the office made we want to be working looking at the view. For a nano second. Looking at the view yes. Working. No. Retirement suits me so much better than I ever thought it would.

I love a pathway where you brush against the plants on either side with some letting out a scent as you brush by. There were plenty of walkways around the borders. Through the borders and along the borders with colours and scents that drew your eye and captured the scent.

Great differences in texture and shape so close to each other but in different named beds. Much better named than mine. Top bed. Side bed right. Side bed left.

Of course there was tea and cakes. Delicious cakes too as is usual at an open garden. Served by Derry herself which gave me an opportunity to say hello.

Not that she knew who I was of course but Georgie had asked me to say hello,from her and I chatted about how I’d bought a salvia patens from her last year at a Rare plant fair. And we talked about my neighbour and the plants she had given me. As soon as I said honesty she replied Corfu blue and then went on to talk about Pitcombe and how when she visited she drove down into the dip ( the centre of the village) and there were fireman practicing their drill on the viaduct. This used to happen every year but it hasn’t happened for I guess over 10. But she remembered. So did I funny enough. Who wouldn’t. Firemen outside your front door climbing ladders,

I said to Ian. Go grab those two deckchairs. His reply “ Are you having a laugh , once you get in one of those you’ll never get out” so he found a more suitable seating arrangement! Nothing but honest. He was right I’d never have got out ~ well I would but not elegantly.

I digress which is t difficult. It’s like me in the garden. A butterfly going from one chore to another and back again.

The obligatory photo of Ian. Ten paces in front as we head out of the main garden into the wooded area.

Of course I bought plants. Not as many as I had bought the day before. But I did buy plants. It would be rude not to wouldn’t it. A salvia involucratahadsoen, Astrantia maxima and a few others. I could have spent all my pocket money on plants had I been on my own. But I did come away with the catalogue. If I was any good at sowing seeds !!!!

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I moaned about the diversion via Bath on the way there and I moaned about the diversion through Bradford upon Avon on the way back. But I’d do it again. But later in the season. I must check the dates I don’t think we will be leaving the country for quite a while.

The nursery is open Tuesday ~ Saturday and the garden is open on Wednesdays. Now that is workable. A visit to the garden and a trip into Bath.