Sunday garden visiting

Ambrose Place back gardens in Worthing are well worth a visit. They are open once a year and on the Sunday of our weekend we toured the one way system of Worthing until our eyes were caught by the distinctive yellow signs 'garden open'. For 25 years some of these gardens have opened and this year there were 14 to see. Apart from two, all are very narrow, mostly without lawns and an inspiration for what can be achieved in a small space.

There were many visitors and we had to shuffle, sometimes sideways, or wait to enter a garden until someone else left it. But what a treat! One had four water features including a rill and pond with bridge, another had a very narrow 'canal'. There were fig trees in fruit, cordylines making umbrellas of foliage above our heads, oleanders and a huge Judas tree with wonderful pink seed pods.

One garden was a mass of herbaceous planting, rainbow coloured, another colour themed, another made for children. But all were inventive and fun, with ideas that could be copied or modified.

It is always a treat to find the owners in such gardens and find out the name of that tree or rose and also to give praise.

There were plants for sale too and I bought at least three. Unnamed, but I shall find out what they are eventually! One an Aeonium type, green rosettes, another slightly spiky hairy leaves with a delicate white flower and I cannot remember the third!

From there we went to Great Dixter, arriving a lot later than we had planned and at the same time as a coach load of Dutch tourists. That was a pity, because some of them were rather rude and unfortunately rudeness is often more noticeable than politeness. Never mind, the gardens are the thing.

Christo is still there in spirit for me. I last saw him picking grapes in the sunk garden and putting them straight into his mouth. The garden is full of him. The meadows were colourful, with orchids and hardy geraniums among the ox eye daisies and buttercups. There were purple irises in the moat. The old rose garden is best later in the year - but still of interest - and the long borders splendid. There seemed to be even more wonderful planted areas and a newish area that was obviously a work in progress. Water lilies on the horse pond were flowering. It was all a treat as it always is.

We roamed the nursery. I did not know what to buy, but had to have something. In the end I went for a challenge - a Tetrapanax. While paying I discovered they had seeds of Persicaria orientalis which I have been looking for since I saw it at Dixter and also at La Jardin Plume in France a couple of years ago. Highly delighted!

Hope they grow.

What a weekend. We drove home, full of that feeling that makes you say 'Aaah!' Satisfied and sated. And full of plans.

Though why I keep buying plants when we are hoping to move house I don't know.