'You don't have to be grand to open your garden for charity.' An article with this title has just been removed from Sarah Raven's website - sorry, I was going to link to it!
If you have been considering the idea I would encourage you to go ahead.
It's a win win win set up. We, the gardeners have our gardens looking wonderful with most of the work done and most of the summer still to come. The 188 visitors had a lovely and inexpensive day out. And the charities get £1560 they would not otherwise get!
We are delighted with the results. We are very rural - the nearest small town is 13 miles away, the nearest city 2 hours away, but people came from far and wide. If you are in a more populated area you could expect many more visitors and raise a lot more money too.
Hard work but fun! We will be having a celebratory garden party later in the summer.
I have to confess I did cheat! I've not had much success growing the beautiful allium Christophii (too wet in winter). However I did manage to grow a few in some old pots. They were straggly and leaning every which way...
so I cut them, slid a very thin cane up inside the stem, and stuck them into the ground in the bit of the garden where I originally wanted them to grow!
Simply Money - do these two words go together? Can money be simple? Is it the root of all evil, or does it make the world go around?
Earn your keep. Pay your way. Put some by for a rainy day. This old saying makes it seem simple enough.
So does Micawber's famous dictum from Dickens' David Copperfield - Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
It's time for a closer look...