Opening our garden in Dorset

Courage is a love affair with the unknown. Osho

When we have visited open gardens I have asked myself 'why do people visit other people's gardens?' Now I am asking the same questions as we open our own garden. I suspect there are as many reasons as there are visitors, but the love of gardens in some form is at the root. It may be to glean ideas for people's own gardens; haven't we all done this? It may be to talk about gardening with someone other that one's spouse. Perhaps to bounce ideas off someone else who knows the practicalities. It may be just for a pleasant day out in the fresh air finished of with a cream tea. My biggest reasons would be to see how a a garden fits in with its physical situation, especially the built environment, and how the character of the garden meshes with the personality of the owner.

We 'screwed out courage to the sticking point' to take part in the Open Garden weekend in mid-June. Our village has some rather spectacular gardens and some rather large gardens. Ours is neither, but we felt we might appeal to people who have a more modest patch.

Below is a log of what happened, first by way of a tour of the garden and then in some of the comments from visitors. On the gate we posted a little run-down of the progress of the garden during the last 3 years and a sheet of pictures taken during its development.

What a pretty little garden

From the pictures you can really see how far you've come

Wow, gorgeous, so lovely

I love the way you've got more garden by going upwards

The stones look very heavy to move

I wish my garden was as small as this

A good tip for keeping tulips is to plant them in pots within pots that can be taken out after flowering, dried over the summer and then returned to the big pots in the autumn.

I can try that at home

We've only got a small garden and it's nice to see what you can do

I love the look of astrantia in the garden, but I hate the smell of it as a cut flower

The acer looks so tall up there

I love the way the plants crawl over each other on the wall

My hosta/alquiligea/chrysanthimums ... died during the winter.

How do the nematodes work?

You've made this into a very special place

I shall certainly look at the blog!

The occasional person came in, glanced around and went straight out again.