Garden Centre

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Garden Gadabout disappointments

Well I wondered whether to write about this or not, but in the end, I decided to go ahead. Simply put, I found the supposed Garden Gadabout to be a complete disaster. We were going to visit five gardens, but when we got to the area, three were closed.

Okay, the weather wasn’t great, but surely gardeners aren’t that wimpy? If we’d visited the gardens in a different order, we would have been even more annoyed than we were, because the first, very lovely, town garden we went to had information that there were three closed gardens (although not why they were closed) and so we knew not to walk to any of them.

Apparently one had been listed ‘by mistake’ which left me completely confused, because I’d checked the charity’s website before leaving home and it was still listed there, which suggests the garden owner’s hadn’t tried to correct the mistake or the charity was too disorganised to update their website. All these gardens were supposed to be open on two consecutive weekends and we were visiting on the second, which you would have thought gave plenty of time for putting right errors.

Anyway, we were going to wend our way to another garden, about half a mile away, but soon after we left garden Number One a rainstorm of monumental proportions began and we were caught in it. By the time we’d found somewhere to shelter and wrung out our shoes (seriously, I was emptying rainwater out of my shoes within about a minute) we wanted nothing other than to get home and find some large towels.

A wash-out, in two senses of the word, in fact and it will teach me to walk and use public transport rather than driving, as my OH pointed out rather bitterly as we squelched to the bus stop.

The one garden we did visit was very pretty but very new. Now, much as I love garden design, my big beef with garden shows is that they create artificial gardens and you have no idea how well the plants will live together or what it will look like at other seasons of the year. So it was with this tiny, modern-formal garden. I think it could grow to be delicious, but it’s too early to tell. It did have some lovely little features that I will be exploring in the posts ahead, but for now, here’s a couple of views to whet your appetite …

Labels: garden gadabout, garden tours, garden visits, gardens open to the public

The All Seasons Gardener at 5:32 AM

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