Open GardensComments from our members

Private garden open for charity
Open days in 2008:

May 10 Saturday (Walsall Deaf People’s Centre)
May 11 Sunday (ngs/Yellow Book & 20% Walsall Heart Care)
May 17 Saturday (Epilepsy Charities)
May 18 Sunday (ngs/Yellow Book & 20% Walsall Heart Care)

July 27 Sunday (Walsall National Trust)

August 9 Saturday (Samaritans of Walsall and District)
August 10 Sunday (ngs/Yellow Book & 20% Walsall Heart Care)

10am - 6pm every open day
Admission £3, children free (proceeds to named charities)
Tea and biscuits extra
Note: There are some steps. Toilet at garden level.

S-facing 1/3 acre, suburban garden, gently sloping to arboretum, some steps. For all seasons and age groups. 200 acers, 350 azaleas, bright clipped conifers, shrubs provide back drop for spring bulbs, perennials, summer bedding. Many 'rooms' and themes incl contrast of red, blue and yellow. Jungle, oriental pagoda, water features. Winner Daily Mail National Garden Competition 2007. Winner Walsall in Bloom 2006. Featured on ITV Central News

The house of Pitmuies is a private garden near Forfar. The garden comprises formal vegetable gardens, lawns and borders of stunning flowering shrubs and herbaceous perennials. There is also a charming woodland walk along the river bank through beech woods and up to a loch by the house. I think for me the herbaceous borders were the biggest treat. They were phenomenal.

I went to visit this garden in 2007,And it was well worth the visit,There are lots or areas of great interest,The plants are all very healthy,And they have a rose walk,which is outstanding,i will take some pics of that this year.

A hidden garden of superlatives just ten minutes north west of Okehampton and the A30. Set inside a walled garden with 14ft high walls a broad path weaves through the garden's rich magic of the cottage planting style. A hundred climbers grace the walls and shrubbery. One restored greenhouse is full of prized Bougainvillea. Then walk amongst giant gunnera and 40ft bamboos. There are over 60 beautiful hostas, so big they reach your belt. So much to take in you don't know where to look next.
There's a free mobility vehicle available if needed and plenty of seating throughout. Open daily from 05 April. B&B for those who want to stay longer in this central Devon location.

maybe when I retire I shall be able to return to britain...my genes left there a century-or-so ago. Family came from East Sussex, Lewes, Hove, Brighton area.. would love to see Cornwall.

Visited last weekend, quite an impressive display of crocus, cyclamen,aconites and other spring bulbs. It was very busy though! Probably better to visit during the week. I thought this was an RHS garden and went armed with my membership card, but it isnt! Entrance fee £4.50, I think £3 may be more appropriate. Nice to visit, perhaps a couple of weeks later would have been better.

A lovely small castle, built 14th - 17th centuries, with a walled fruit, vegetable and ornamentalgarden laid out in the Late Victorian era. Now owned by the National Trust for Scotland. The garden is managed organically and many heritage varieties from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library are grown here. Visit in summer for the best colours. Woodland and meadow walks, tearoom, exhibitions and a children's adventure playground add further interest.

Owned by the National Trust for Scotland, this garden is a recreation of a mediaeval kitchen garden, built on terraces behind the palace. Proof that fruit and vegetables can be just as beautiful as any other kind of gardening.

A really peaceful place - with interesting garden and lovely sculptures.
Well worth a detour for!

Great little garden in a gem of a Cotswold village - a 'mini valley' location and some clever planting make this well worth visiting, perhaps in combination (and in contrast to) nearby Hidcote Manor. This is gardening with a sense of humour. Last visit was in April when there were spectacular scents from Hyacinths and Osmanthus.

www.milldenegarden.co.uk. Open March 18th, Tues to Fri, 10 - 5

Went a couple of years ago in July. The island beds were amazing, and it shows how big some grasses can grow. There is a lot to amuse as well as the gardens there are trains, if you like that sort of thing. I spent my day in the gardens and found it instructive. I also went to the nursery, the plants were reasonably priced but not all you see in the gardens are available. There was a water centre but I did not visit. Would say its worth the visit if your that way but not as varied as a day out at Barnsdale.

This is a garden full of contradictions.
Close to the Tay, it is very easy to drive past this garden with no awareness of what is there.
Walk into it and you have no idea that one of Scotland's busiest roads is only a suicidal lurch away.
But who would want to waste their life on suicide here?
From a spectacular scramble of alpinic falls to the comforting acid depths, and everything in between, this is a garden worth saving. And its beauty does more than any amount of expensive hours of therapy to tell you that life is worth saving and living too. Miss visiting this garden at your peril!!!!

Hill of Tarvit was, I believe, designed by Lorimer. What I actually know is that it has a fabulous plant sale early October each year. I confess, also, that the frost covered tree that accompanies my name is a picture taken above Tarvit Mansion.

Previously, I have been blown away by the Clematis that covers the entrance wall - I presume it's a montana. It also has a handkerchief tree, but the thing that impressed me the most was the planting in its long borders - high on a slope but south facing, they are a haven for butterflies and bees as far as I can see - and without them a garden is nothing.

To which garden does this refer? I have been to a lovely little garden in Chipping Campden, which was planted as a tribute to EH Wilson (Chinese Wilson) the plant hunter who, I think was born here. Particularly spectacular at the time we visited was the Handkerchief Tree (Davidia involucrata).

This is where I fell in love with Meconopsis - an amazing Himalayan treasure trove of plants collected by the late owners - now National Trust for Scotland.

According to the Warwick Chamber of Trade web site:
"Close to the town centre, and behind the Tourist Information Centre, is the unexpected haven of the Pageant Garden.
In this public open space are held civic garden parties; it forms the backdrop for wedding photographs and the huge chestnut trees cast a welcome shade to passers by."

It was pretty uninspiring on our visit in January -- little of the planting was in at an attractive stage, and the admittedly impressive trees were bare. I'm sure it's a lot more pleasant in season.

There's a leaflet available by the £1.50 honesty box. Here's some facts lifted from it:

The Mill Garden is the private garden of hte late Arthur Measures.

This peaceful garden stands in a place which, for many centuries was one of hustle and business. The whole of the traffic from the town going South and East crossed it on its way to the old bridge; earlier still to the ford. For hundreds of years traffic to and from the Castle Corn Mill came to it. At times when the Castle building work was in progress, it was little better than a stone mason's yard.

Many famous people must have come this way - all the Earls of Warwick, some of our kings and queens, probably William Shakespeare and common folk too from the town and the surrounding countryside.

Times of opening: 9am to 6pm, April 1st - October 31st. (We went on a sunny Sunday in January - I suppose we must have been lucky to find it open). Adults £1.50, young children with adults free, no dogs.

£134,880 has been raised for national and local charities between 1974 and 2006. Garden proceeds will go towards keeping The Mill Gardens open to the public, and to support National Gardens Scheme and 35 other charities.

Yes - fabulous! When we first went, our daughter was only about 5 and she took one look at the house frontage and burst into tears! Having comforted her, we asked what was wrong - it was because she found it so overwhelmingly beautiful. Says it all, really, doesn't it. I do hope that it stays as an open garden - with no Christopher Lloyd I know there are financial problems.

I agree with Andrew - I love Hidcote and I have been back there several times at different times of the year. Always beautiful. Maybe we could ask them for a GoY private opening, Andrew?