The Garden Gadabout: weekends of garden pleasure!

Posted:14 June 2010

Opening one’s personal space to visiting gardening enthusiasts is a tense business, like baring your soul for all to see. We’re really not sure why we do it it’s an emotionally rocky time one moment you’re revelling in a little admiration, then appalled when someone notices the empty petunias box from B&Q shoved into a forgotten corner (we only bought them at the eleventh hour to plug a gap for heaven’s sake!)…

Of course when the wellie’s on the other foot – nothing gives us more pleasure than exploring someone else’s garden, loved and nurtured over many years, or newly created and full of potential and exciting ideas…

If you possibly can, keep the weekends of 26/27 June and 3/4 July free – two weekends when over sixty beautiful private gardens and community spaces will be opening their gates for this year’s Sussex Beacon Garden Gadabout.  Many are in Brighton and Hove but also as far afield as Lewes, the village of Rodmell, and to the east, Peacehaven and Seaford.

There are an extraordinary variety of outdoor spaces to enjoy.  New gardens join the best from last year – visit overflowing allotments, community spaces, shady nooks and courtyard gardens, large expansive gardens, gardens where creativity is key, and gardens where plants come first – all hidden gems waiting to be explored…

Many offer delicious homemade cakes and refreshments, plants for sale, jams and honey – even sales of local artworks.

So whether you’re an experienced gardener, keen novice, or simply want to come along to see what your neighbours have done with a space similar to your own – check the website, look out for the free booklet, and start planning your trails!  www.gardengadabout.org.uk

All proceeds from the weekends go to the Sussex Beacon, a unique centre providing innovative services to meet the changing needs of men and women living with HIV. www.sussexbeacon.org.uk