It did not take long to go to sleep last night. After a weekend of baking, talking, entertaining, watering, meeting, greeting, fetching and carrying we were both absolutely shattered. 180 lovely people came to visit the garden; not a record, but we value quality above quantity and we certainly achieved that. At the final count we had raised £886 for charity, which is the most in the three years we’ve been supporting the National Gardens Scheme. Thank you to everyone who took time to look, chat and enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of cake.
I know may people would like to have come that were not able to, so, first thing this morning, in my dressing gown and slippers (there’s a vision for you!), I recorded another short video highlighting the plants that received the most attention from visitors. Completely unrehearsed, and with some minor blips, this is as close as I can bring you to the real thing.
Off now to prepare for the arrival of my niece. No rest for the wicked!
Plants mentioned in the video are as follows:
- Streptocarpus saxorum
- Fuchsia ‘Dark Delicious’
- Tweedia caerulea
- Aeonium ‘Zwartkop’
- Tibouchina urvilleana ‘Variegata’
- Hedychium ‘Stephen’
- Lyonothamnus floribundus ssp. aspleniifolius
- Isoplexis sceptrum (Digitalis sceptrum)
- Fuchsia splendens
- Dahlia ‘Amercian Dawn’
- Gloriosa rothschildiana
- Rhodochiton atrosanguineus
- Passiflora x violacea ‘Victoria’
- Begonia ‘Bossa Nova White’
- Dahlia ‘Labyrinth’, D. ‘Dubonnet’ and D. ‘American Dawn’
The Frustrated Gardener 
Beauuuutiful, thank you ever so much for sharing and including us 15 000km away (very South East) in your open garden. All that work Dan you are a star.
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Loved seeing the garden again this year and well done to both of you for raising so much money. Keep the blogs coming and look forward to seeing what you will have done to the garden at Polegate next year. Mrs. P.
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Loved coming around the garden this weekend and have taken away some ideas for my own small, partly paved area. Did you make the seed cake? If so could I have the recipe please. My grandmother used to make it for me and I’d forgotten the taste until yesterday.
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Well done you…what a great effort with your £886 raised for a good cause 🙂 the garden looks fantastic (thanks for the virtual tour) I so wish I could have supported you in person but I was there in spirit at least. Rest now in the knowledge of a job well done.
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Thank you. It’s going to take a day or two to catch up on my sleep! I’m happy to have the rest of the week off work and a beach at the end of the street. ⛱
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Lovely mini-tour of your beautiful garden. Good to see larger plants can be used so well in a smaller space, well done, you have worked so hard! I am thinking of planning next annual holiday to coincide with your open days!
Interesting to see the tibouchina too; I saw a non-varigated plant in Lidl in the spring and bought it for £1.50. It should be blue but despite having 3 good stems, its flowers haven’t appeared yet.
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Tibouchina can take a painfully long time to flower, but it will get there. For £1.50 you have bagged a bargain and a strong plant will pay dividends in the long run. Hope to see you next year. Dates to be confirmed!
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I so enjoyed your video tour of your beautiful garden – so much colour and interest and what a great sum raised for charity. Elaine.
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Thank you Elaine. It does not take long to do a full tour, but it sure takes a lot of looking after!
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Congratulations on raising so much money for charity, and thank you for the virtual tour; another great video 🙂
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I’m in love… with your garden! Thank you for taking is on the tour. Greetings from New Jersey, USA.
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Greetings from East Kent Steve. Glad you enjoyed my garden from the other side of the Atlantic.
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It is absolutely stunning! You are so generous to share with the public and raise money for charity! Thank you for then taking the time to make a video. The best part was hearing your voice and British accent : ) you don’t get that with written words. I am saving one! Very inspiring!!! Have a great week! Cheers
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Glad you enjoyed my accent. Naturally I don’t notice it myself! We’re enjoying a spell of hot sunny weather after the gales so will be heading to the beach for the rest of the week.
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Thank you so much for taking the time to show us your garden – its absolutely beautiful! I hope you’re feeling v proud. Love the American dawn and Labyrinth dahlias!
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I am definitely growing Labyrinth next year 🤓 those blooms are so extravagant!
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Dan, your garden is beautiful, I would have loved to have seen it in person! Congratulations on all your hard work and the money you’ve both raised for charity.
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Thanks Ali. It’s great fun to do, but I am glad it’s only once a year!
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The NGS is great – I’m glad you introduced it to me 😊 (Broadstairs is a bit far for me to do but I am glad you raised so much money.)
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Thanks Helen. Happy to offer you a virtual tour instead 🤓
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Marvellous all round. I’m just amazed at what you have achieved in such a small space. Many thanks for sharing it with us all and enjoy your rest.
P.S. I think HI might deserve a special treat after that lot! The things we do for love.
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Huge congratulations on such a successful result! Well deserved after all your hard work. I have enjoyed the videos tremendously, especially as I was unable to come along and experience the real thing.
Your blog is delightful by the way.
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Thanks Alison. I think I will make more videos in future. They seem to have gone down well, despite my amateurism.
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What a delight! Thank you for the video….and all the lovely detail!
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It’s a pleasure Alison. Glad you enjoyed my little glimpse of the garden.
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Absolutely stunning. Well done on raising so much money for charity. You have given me so many ideas and inspiration. The video tour was great. I’d thought about doing a video post myself on my own blog, now seeing how well it worked for you, I’ll definitely give it a try in the future.
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Thanks Tina. It does seem that videos go down well. I just do them straight off the cuff without any planning, in just one take. I might have a think about planning them more diligently in future, but in the short term I like the spontaneity.
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Wonderful, thank you so much from Germany!
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Congratulations on such a great weekend. I loved the video tour. Are you sure you can’t squeeze one more plant in? 🙂
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I will always give it a try!
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Thank you for the video tour. The garden is so beautiful and the video gives that sense of scale that you don’t get from photos. I especially love the enclosed, restrained feel of the Trachelospermum walk that leads to the main event. Learned lots of things about colour, texture, form, etc, but the biggie was the importance of clean paving paving to set the scene. You inspired me to get out the broom yesterday – garden looks much better for it! 🙂
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Thanks for noticing the paving. I am a fastidious sweeper, for looks as well as limiting what gets trodden straight into the house. Slate benefits from a good jet washing now and then to remove dust and algae. Comes up a treat and sets the plants off better!
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Our patio is 2 to 3 feet lower than the rest of the garden so lots of ‘stuff’ is blown down onto the (badly laid) riven sandstone paving. Unfortunately I am not fastidious enough, but lots of potting up today after a weekend plant fair, so looks like the broom will be coming out again tomorrow! Husband will wonder whats going on!
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What a great sum raised and so glad the weather didn’t wash out the event!
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We were very lucky, and the weather has just got better and better as the week has gone on 😎
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