Gardens

Open to the elements

Ursula Buchan

A s the weather turns, and sporadically ..improves, commuters on station plat- forms may occasionally be seen digging out imaginary yorkers with furled umbrellas and fantasising, I suppose, of triumphs before a packed ground at Lord's, or more practically, looking forward to a summer of watching cricket from a deck-chair. Being only a recent convert to the game, prone to losing umbrellas and ever mindful of my dignity, my response to the coming of summer is rather different. I find myself peering over fences and walls into gardens, and dreaming of summer Sundays spent poking my nose into other people's roses and squinting at faded labels which all but obscure the small, choice rock plants be- hind them.

For now the first gardens are opening, most of them under the aegis of the National Gardens Scheme and similar organisations. Well over 2,000 will do so. There is charm in their very variety: commercial nurseries, tiny village gardens all in a row, neo-Victorian bedding schemes in box-surrounded parterres, Jekyllesque one-colour borders, cheerfully chaotic cottage gardens and immaculate National Trust showpieces. In London, even, there are gardens of great character and interest, enough to please the sniffiest Metropolitan, in Islington or Highgate, in Kensington or Pinner.

There is charm too, and a sense of Privilege conferred, in the fact that most of the gardens are quite private; hidden, except for one or two occasions in the year, behind high walls and hedges. In villages and hamlets, that scarcely exist for most of as except as names on signposts, the Old Rectories, the Manor Farmhouses and the Laurels are waiting for their day to open.

In comparison, the gardens of stately homes, fine as they can be, lose their lustre

with familiarity and easy access; with all their grandeur and careful upkeep they are not the same sort of treat at all.

As the day approaches, friends are put Off and holidays ignored by anxious owners

working in the gardens till the light goes,

trimming the edges just once more. Some are reluctant to open in the first place,

Persuaded perhaps by others in the same road who need support, or, though hardly Puffed-up with conceit about their achieve- ments, because they cannot resist sharing their pleasure in the garden with others; like having a good bottle of wine that it would seem so much less convivial, even indecent, to drink alone. Worry about the weather and the lateness of the season mounts. Barometers are tapped till they shake; first rain, then sun is prayed for. To some the creation and the care of a garden is so personal that opening it to others is like a diffident man opening his heart, not to be lightly considered or undertaken.

On the day, these gardeners stand timid- ly by, wondering if perhaps they are showing off a little, easily recognisable by the oldness of their gardening clothes and readily lured into enthusiastic talk when they meet someone who shares their pas- sion for species roses or tuberous begonias. It must be said that not all garden visitors come solely for the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Clianthus puniceus or admiring yet one more silver foliage border. There is the satisfaction for some of rubbing shoulderg, and maybe even buttonholing, those whose lineage is ancient enough to draw a smile of approval from Squire Thorne of Ullathorne himself. There is the opportunity, too, to sit, legs outstretched, on the family's garden furni- ture, eating home-made cakes and admir- ing the view, and pretending for an after- noon that the building behind (three- quarters of a page in Pevsner) belongs to them. The house can be as much of an attraction and there is a good deal of discreet but sharp-eyed gazing through ground-floor windows.

A major element come, however, be- cause of an intense interest in gardening and a wholly laudable desire to improve their gardens. Their knowledge is prodi- gious. Earlier this month, in Northampton- shire, in temperatures that would have deterred anyone less dedicated than the Englishman on his day off, I helped to sell what the National Gardens Scheme's hand- book refers to as 'unusual plants', unusual, that is, in the way a blue moon is unusual. There were alpine and rock plants of such rarity they would have caused Reginald Farrer to catch his breath in admiration.

There were plants, the seed of which had been collected by expeditions in Nepal; plants, too, raised in the garden and named after friends and relations, and sold, such being the modesty of the owners and their desire to share their treasures with the rest of the world, for less than mauve aubrietia would fetch in a garden centre. Working on such a stall can be unnerving, for I never know whether a visitor will kindly but firmly put me in my place for not noticing the obvious difference between

Gentiana acaulis and G. verna by the shape of the tuft in the three-inch pot, or whether

my exhaustive account of the cultural

requirements of Rhodohypoxis will be met with a blank look and an inquiry as to

where bedding geraniums may be bought.

I should point out, as thousands of faintly peevish voices do each year, that the standard of the gardens that open for charity is decidedly uneven. How could it be otherwise? Almost by the way, and despite entrance fees that are mostly very low, considerable sums of money are raised each summer. The charitable aspect, not foremost in the visitors' minds, often spurs on the owners, whose energy may have gone but who are determined at least to mow the grass even if the border flowers can barely show their faces above the weeds. Such gardens, however, are rare.

The garden opening season is for me pure pleasure, revealing as it does a most attractive and not unrealistic picture of country life, where good-natured women from the WI do the teas, the old boys man the gate, the sun shines brightly, but never hotly, on lengthy herbaceous borders and tiny alpine gardens alike; pleasure that cannot be soured by a few acid remarks about rose mildew and the odd weed or complaints of aching feet.