Red Cross Blogs

Open Gardens: a trip to the park with a twist

By Victoria Watts
March 19, 2010 at 6:51 pm

I recently read an interview with Sandy Tosvig where she made a comment about the reassuring sound of Radio 4. She said: “When I come back from holiday, and I put it on when I’m driving from the airport, and I hear Peter Donaldson saying, ‘And now part four of the history of the duffel coat’, I think oh yes, I’m home now, everything’s all right.” I agree. I love radio 4 – no matter what it’s talking about, I always feel comforted by its sound, even if half the time I listen to it, it’s talking about gardening.

Now I do love gardening, but it’s in the same kind of way I love cooking and climbing mountains – the idea is fabulous but the reality is a little trickier. So when I hear the radio chat on about perennials and herbaceous borders, it’s like a foreign language to me. Well it was, until now – now I can confidently tell you exactly what an informal vibernum and hellebores are. Why? Because it was my job to edit the new season of Red Cross Open Gardens for the website.

This essentially amounted to learning a new language, and like with any language it opened a new world – a world of nut walks, scented wisteria and wildlife wonderlands. The variety of Open Gardens on offer is remarkable – there are secret gardens, bog gardens, lakes, woodland walks, pergolas and more. My favourite is in North Yorkshire – a Japanese garden complete with zen and karensansui areas.

And it’s not just the gardens. The homemade cakes that are promised at most events are bound to be a treat and some have concerts, gift sales, treasure hunts and other delights. Picnics are also encouraged at many of the events. It might seem like something your gran would do, but really it’s a trip to the park with a twist – the posh way to picnic. I’ll certainly be going to a few – showing off my new language skills and gaining inspiration.

And now, next time I find myself in the car listening to gardening time on a Sunday, I won’t just space out to the hum of foreign sounds, but listen avidly, happy to know such an exotic dictionary of words. Have a look at the listings and see if there’s one that takes your fancy too. At the very least, it’s a chance to take a peek into somebody else’s world.

Visit the Open Gardens pages to choose which ones you want to visit.

Images: www.sxc.hu

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Tags: BBC, events, fundraising, open gardens

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Fundraising and events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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