Various open garden schemes exist, where ordinary people open their ordinary residential gardens to the public on payment of a small fee towards a charity.
I saw that several gardens in our area were to open as part of the 'Chelsea Fringe' - timed to coincide with the Chelsea Flower Show. They were raising money for Trinity Hospice.
It's a good idea but it was rather poorly executed. We paid to go into two gardens. £3 per person a time. Yes, that's £12 for two gardens. In retrospect, perhaps the tickets were transferable between gardens. But they didn't say so, and I've checked the website again, and again it seems to imply a separate entrance fee for each garden. It gets rather expensive. Some places advertise that they served refreshments, with some implying that the refreshments are inclusive and others implying the opposite. So, basically, poor communication!
Still, we went to a very nice garden only a few roads away from us. The people were very pleasant and welcoming, although I found it an odd experience walking into someone's back garden, nosing around and making sotto voce observations. They have a relatively long garden, and have divided into three phases, each of which resembles a garden in its own right, but also mesh well together.
We went to a second garden, where again, the people were very nice and welcoming. We were surpised that their garden seemed no bigger than ours, although they have a lawn as a centrepiece, whereas ours is based around a paved area. It's informative to see how other people use the space, and to ponder whether we could learn anything from them. And, of course, for about ten minutes, I had this mad idea that, of course, next year, we'll open ours to the public, too. Of course we won't. We're far too sensitive. It would only take malicious criticism from one ill-mannered buffoon to cast a cloud over our entire existence. Also, I guess it must take a lot of work to bring them absolutely to standard, whereas if you're just entertaining friends, you can get away with a stack of empty plant pots or a patch that's unplanted.
Deciding we didn't want to pay any more, we went for a coffee on Clapham Common, which was so horrible I blogged about it that day
From there we moved on, and found ourselves, somewhat inadvertently, on Northcote Road, the beyond trendy shopping parade on the Battersea-Clapham borders. By chance we found ourselves in Gail's, from where we purchased some artisan bread to take home. We stopped for a snack. This was my coffee and cake. Very nice.
