In my last post, I talked about an excursion our local gardening club made. This last week, members of the same club were opening their gardens to their fellow gardeners.
In a month which has been very sunny and warm, the day it was our turn to open, rain was threatening, and it was just about 10 degrees Celsius.
However this did not stop people from visiting, and we had a very good day.
Having visitors is a good memory test. As you take people around, they invariably ask you the names of plants.
As a rule, they only ask for the ones you do not remember. It is also a time when plant labels like to play hide and seek!
An advantage of opening the garden is that visitors might point out things that do not work as well as they might.
For instance, this time a group of people took the "wrong" path, one that leads to a utility area behind the garden where we have piles of plastic pots, wheelbarrows, etc.
Obviously, I should make more obvious where to go.
Some areas of the garden are necessarily less attractive than they were some days ago or than they will be in the coming days.
It is a good opportunity to practice not being a "you should have seen it last week" bore.
When we lived in the city and many more people turned up on open days, sometimes they would not realize you were the owner, and they would make comments you could overhear.
I remember a visitor saying "someone is trying hard here", quite a double-edged comment.
However, overheard comments could also be very nice. I remember a women, on a day of many garden visits in succession, saying, as she walked in, "Finally, an actual garden" (no doubt a woman of taste!).
I also remember two visitors arguing very hotly about some native fleabanes (Erigeron) I had left in the middle of a flower bed.
A woman was saying how lovely that was, and a man was reminding her in no uncertain terms that these were weeds.
I let them sort it out!
At this time of the year, you have to weed out good garden plants of which you have too many.
As I weeded in the weeks before the open date, I potted up several of these plants and offered them to whomever wanted them.
In the city, with hundreds of visitors, we had a sale table.
It is a different thing when you only show the garden to a few friends and acquaintances.
The main reason for opening the garden is the incentive it provides to strive to do a bit better than you would otherwise.
Have you ever opened your garden to the public? What was the experience like?
In a month which has been very sunny and warm, the day it was our turn to open, rain was threatening, and it was just about 10 degrees Celsius.
However this did not stop people from visiting, and we had a very good day.
Having visitors is a good memory test. As you take people around, they invariably ask you the names of plants.
As a rule, they only ask for the ones you do not remember. It is also a time when plant labels like to play hide and seek!
An advantage of opening the garden is that visitors might point out things that do not work as well as they might.
For instance, this time a group of people took the "wrong" path, one that leads to a utility area behind the garden where we have piles of plastic pots, wheelbarrows, etc.
Obviously, I should make more obvious where to go.
Some areas of the garden are necessarily less attractive than they were some days ago or than they will be in the coming days.
It is a good opportunity to practice not being a "you should have seen it last week" bore.
When we lived in the city and many more people turned up on open days, sometimes they would not realize you were the owner, and they would make comments you could overhear.
I remember a visitor saying "someone is trying hard here", quite a double-edged comment.
However, overheard comments could also be very nice. I remember a women, on a day of many garden visits in succession, saying, as she walked in, "Finally, an actual garden" (no doubt a woman of taste!).
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| The rose Dortmund climbing on an arch |
I also remember two visitors arguing very hotly about some native fleabanes (Erigeron) I had left in the middle of a flower bed.
A woman was saying how lovely that was, and a man was reminding her in no uncertain terms that these were weeds.
I let them sort it out!
 |
| The blue mound is culinary sage in bloom behind Phlomis russeliana |
At this time of the year, you have to weed out good garden plants of which you have too many.
As I weeded in the weeks before the open date, I potted up several of these plants and offered them to whomever wanted them.
In the city, with hundreds of visitors, we had a sale table.
It is a different thing when you only show the garden to a few friends and acquaintances.
The main reason for opening the garden is the incentive it provides to strive to do a bit better than you would otherwise.
Have you ever opened your garden to the public? What was the experience like?
Yes Alain, we opened for 5 yrs for the National Garden Scheme here in England, or the Yellow Book as it is commonly known. It all depended on the weather as to how many people came and it was a lot of hard work!Various garden clubs visited and I enjoyed them coming as we were asked sensible questions! Your garden is looking beautiful and I'm sure your fellow gardeners thoroughly enjoyed looking round and admired your efforts.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that when you open for gardeners, the questions are more sensible.
DeleteI enjoyed my visit of your garden. The weather you describe on that day is basically what we are having most of the time at the moment. If we opened our garden we would only have room for about half a dozen people and then they would keep bumping into one another.
ReplyDeleteSo far this summer the weather has been very nice with sunny days and cool nights. A little bit more rain would make it perfect.
DeleteJ'ai fait ça une fois, à Winnipeg. Ce fut un travail d'arrache-pied, mais qui m'a laissé un très beau souvenir doublé d'un sens d'accomplissement.
ReplyDeleteLa très grande majorité des visiteurs sont très gentils et la journée où nous ouvrons est toujours intéressante.
DeleteI see you make good use of trellis's. I'm interested in plants and gardens but my own garden is very meagre.
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot of free time you would not have if you spent a lot of time gardening.
DeleteYour garden looks great Alain.
ReplyDeleteIt is basic gardening law that you will forget the names of the plants that people will ask about.
I think it is a gardening law that gets more and more difficult to escape as you get older!
DeleteI had my garden open for the public on special days for many years, I enjoyed it answering the questions of the visitors and it was a good training to remember the plant names but at last I got bored and wanted to change the garden in my very own garden where dog, cats, hens and children may play and run around. It was a nice time but I can miss the stress on the days before the open days.
ReplyDeleteYour trellis garden looks wonderful and I'm sure the visitors enjoyed it despite the rain.
It most be fun to have hens in the garden. I suppose they eat a lot of best but also scratch in the wrong spots. Ducks or hens would be difficult to keep here as we are in the middle of a wood filled with foxes, coyotes, weasels, etc....
DeleteYour garden looks great to me. Occasionally a garden group will visit my garden and I generally enjoy these visits quite a lot. We have a garden club visiting on the 23rd of this month. I totally identify with your comment on how much the better the garden is either the week before or after.
ReplyDeleteIt often is the case.
DeleteJust two questions. One What is the poppy in the foreground of the first photo. 2nd the plant with large leaves with the white flowers by trellis fence foreground again in 1st photo. Lots of colour, have you had much rain?
ReplyDeleteHi Bill,
DeleteThe red poppy is a cultivar of Papaver rhoeas. The plant with big leaves is a biennial, a plant I like a lot, Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica. The bloom is mostly white but with a blue-pink edge.
We were 3 weeks without a drop of rain but we got several hours last Friday. It made quite a difference.
Roses, culinary sage and red poppies are more we have in common.
ReplyDeleteOur garden would get very crowded if more than a few people were here.
At first view it looks like we live on different planets but I am sure we have more plants in common than one would think.
DeleteHello Alain, it looks stunning and I'm sure every last one of your visitors enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm not sure how many years it will take before this garden is ready to be opened, it must be such a nerve wracking thing to do!
ReplyDeleteYou are very kind Sunil. It is rather nerve wracking the first time you open but you quickly learn that people are so nice it becomes a pleasure.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear it went well, I'm sure your visitors enjoyed the chance to see how things were going and I'm sure you were the only one aware of how nice some things were the week before!
ReplyDeleteI've never opened my garden and don't foresee it happening anytime soon. Posting online allows you to hide and edit what's seen, and I think it's the only thing which keeps my garden somewhat interesting... reality is much harsher.