Have you ever had an 'open garden'?

[TheMidnightGrower]

MidnightGrower, I think you're being a bit harsh about people who open their garden for the yellow book schemes. I've been to several normal sized suburban gardens that have been opened in order to raise money for the owner's favourite charities.
I've never met a snobbish garden owner yet

I was not intending to criticise the people who own and open the gardens - its very generous of them - it was the attititude of the yellow book committee members I saw on the documentary. I appreciate they may want to have standards, but the nit picking over trivial things was absurd. I just felt I did not want to support the attitudes the committee had. I felt very sorry for some of the applicants as some of them had lovely gardens but were told it would be years before they would become 'good enough'. Some of the non yellow book gardens I have gone around would not stand a chance of being included in the yellow scheme, but were really fun and enjoyable to view.

I really dont think doing the TV show all those years back did them any favours. Possibly they have more pleasant judging committees by now and I am just out of date over the yellow book attitudes.

I am not sure what counts as a normal size garden overall in UK housing, maybe about 10 or 15 yards per side for most post war housing, just a back yard in many Victorian era houses? Its a long time since I have looked in a yellow book, so maybe there are more gardens of this size now listed? I stopped going at least 15 years ago and most gardens at the time were at least the size of 2 or 3 tennis courts and most were massively bigger - hence my saying most people could not aspire to open or maintain them. There is nothing wrong with such gardens at all, its just they seemed to be the only sort listed in the yellow books, in my area, at the time. But as I said, thinking about it, quite a bit of time has passed since then.

I think anyone should open their garden if they fancy it - people like a pleasant trip out and some nice things to look at, perfection is not required.

[TheMidnightGrower]

I tried to edit my previous reply slightly, but failed (sorry folks). So for clarification here is the edited version

MidnightGrower, I think you're being a bit harsh about people who open their garden for the yellow book schemes. I've been to several normal sized suburban gardens that have been opened in order to raise money for the owner's favourite charities.
I've never met a snobbish garden owner yet

I was not intending to criticise the people who own and open the gardens - its very generous of them - it was the attititude of the yellow book committee members I saw on the documentary. I appreciate they may want to have standards, but the nit picking over trivial things was absurd. I just felt I did not want to support the attitudes the committee had. I felt very sorry for some of the applicants as some of them had lovely gardens but were told it would be years before they would become 'good enough'. Some of the non yellow book gardens I have gone around would not stand a chance of being included in the yellow scheme, but were really fun and enjoyable to view.

I really dont think doing the TV show all those years back did them any favours. Possibly they have more pleasant judging committees by now and I am just out of date over the yellow book attitudes.

I am not sure what counts as a normal size garden overall in UK housing, maybe about 10 or 15 yards per side for most post war housing, just a back yard in many Victorian era houses? Its a long time since I have looked in a yellow book, so maybe there are more gardens of this size now listed? I stopped going at least 15 years ago and most gardens at the time were at least the size of 2 or 3 tennis courts and most were massively bigger - hence my saying most people could not aspire to open or maintain them (in order to be acceptable for yellow book inclusion). There is nothing wrong with such gardens at all, its just they seemed to be the only sort listed in the yellow books, in my area, at the time. But as I said, thinking about it, quite a bit of time has passed since then. I got the impression that only big, expensive gardens were worth their time. I hope I am incorrect these days.

I should stress I am not resentful of people having big gardens, that is not the issue.

Somewhere further up the thread a poster advised having a garden big enough to entertain people for half an hour at the least. I really dont think that applies if you are honest in your description of the garden size if encoraging people to travel distance to it, or if there are multiple gardens opening that day in your immediate area - size is totally irrelevant as they can drift about between all of them for the afternoon or day.

I think anyone should open their garden if they fancy it, tiny or huge, casual or perfect - people like a pleasant trip out and some nice things to look at, perfection is not required :-)

[carly]

Our village has open gardens for everyone who wants to take part every July. I am going to do it for July 2018. We live on a firmer airbase so all the properties we live in are huge ( the Americans built them) and we all have very big back gardens! The RA charges 2 pound and then the public are given a map of the base and they can go in all gardens. The proceeds are given to a local hospice for cancer care.