Who will be coming to Open Day?

Boundary Cottage, Seaton Ross, York

Sunday 7th September 11am to 4pm

Boundary Cottage is scarcely a cottage and has very few boundaries. It is not in the village, just follow the large yellow signs.

It comes around again, my Open day on the first Sunday in September. It's a red letter day on my calendar when I show off my garden. Everyone rallies round. Marilyn and Dave drive up from Oxford to act as general factotums and organise the parking. Brenda has a long list of handy-man jobs for Dave, the only one in my family who is remotely competent. There are two changes this time. Brenda is doing the teas and Peter Williams is coming to sell his wonderful plants. He has a fantastic nursery as his passion is propagation and has hundreds of rare high quality plants that are desperate to find a good home. There will also be my usual five for £10 offer of my own smaller plants!

Hardy cyclamen are everywhere. There are sure to be some in my plant sale!

My brassicas are somewhat perforated. With little sign of caterpillars it is probably the snails. The super-sweetcorn called Lark is the best one to grow and is available from Mole Seeds and Marshalls.

I have cut the hedge with my wonderful new Husqvarna specially for you

I was a little disappointed to have only just over a hundred visitors on each of my two open days last year. This is why this year there is the only one. I have been opening my gardens nearly thirty years now and must admit how spoilt I used to be to get many hundreds of visitors when I lived in Bolton Percy which was nearer large centres of population. Now we watch approaching cars and hope some of them will stop!

Will anyone come?

Numbers vary greatly, very much depending on the weather. Poor Peter four years ago when he opened his own garden for the first time had four hundred visitors. Two years ago the weather was absolutely foul and his thirty visitors where mainly friends and relations! 

I have previously offered the opinion that he has one of the finest gardens in Yorkshire.

Brenda complains less about my shallow containers of alpines now that she has cleverly placed them

There may not be many of you but we love to meet you and talk about gardens and plants. We get many lovely surprises from who actually comes! Some folk come regularly. One lovely lady used to be  as regular as clockwork. We were always pleased to see her when she was always first to arrive with her husband and dog. She always made a beeline to the plant stall and he took off for a two hour walk in the country. She always remembered to reward him with something from the cake stand. Her husband I mean!

Cake will be served in our conservatory

When I started blogging I hoped it would help to promote my Open day. Silly me, most of you are too far away! My other innocent thought was that the Open day would promote my blog. That was rather naive of me too. We did however meet the lovely Little family last year who open their own garden and organise their own county yellow book scheme. Pauline now regularly makes very helpful contributions in my comment column.

Not many gardens sport hardy opuntias growing with a bog plant. The bog weed must be a blogweed!

Blogweeds are defined as weeds that arise in a bloggers’ garden when they are too busy writing!

We have bloggers who come too. Sue Garret and Martyn came last year and took many super pictures. Sue is quite a card. I apologise again Sue, for mistaking you for Zena Lovett and if you do come again there is a small clivia waiting for you!  

Sue might appreciate the problem with fallen bird seed from the bird feeder just over the wall on the edge of the farm field. These blogweeds are birdweeds!

It is always a thrill to meet returning visitors, former acquaintances, neighbours and clients. Perhaps best of all is to catch up with former students not seen for years. It is visitors who make the occasion.

I have just been pruning my golden Metasequoia glyptostroboides which has opened up the view.

Multi-million year fossils of this tree are found in the UK. Does this qualify it as a native plant?

The dicentra scandens has flowered profusely this year. Please help yourself to some seed

As my none dug soil is firm and settled you can walk anywhere. Please don’t stand on this rim or you will find yourself in the water.

All my tub plants are growing in soil

Please say hello or ask a question. If you just want to walk around or enjoy tea and cakes or look over the hedge at Cathi's garden we will not disturb you! Her rheas are still there but Spike is getting old and cantankerous and will have to be kept at a distance.

Twin-ponds. We have battled this year with water soldiers. Some remain as sentries. I sometimes need to drag out the duckweed.

All the pictures were taken ten days before Open day to give you a flavour.

If you want to know more about my garden put 'open garden' in the search box at the bottom of the blog.