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.

Perfection?

West Dean gardens near Chichester was our next destination. A delay on the M25 (of course) and we arrived about lunchtime. The signs indicated An Event - why didn't I see that on the net? and my heart sank. But it was a bonus - lots of plant stalls (hold me back!), lovely food, crafts and 'sundries'. I dipped into my purse often, ate lamb and pumpkin pie with mash (superb), my first raspberries of the season, with cream, and bought herbs including Blackcurrant sage, a Hemerocallis 'Morning Chimes', a couple of grasses and I cannot remember what else.

Eventually we entered the kitchen garden, which had been the original focus of the visit! Wow, wow, wow! Go!

Goblet and cone trained fruit trees, cordons and espaliers. Red cabbages the size of a tractor wheel. Currants in double cordons. Thirteen Victorian glasshouses with all that fantastic engineering to open vents and pipes for warmth with the whole house partly sunk into the ground or lean to style with the back wall covered in trained peaches and nectarines, or grape vines. How we wanted to close our hands around a peach, so perfect, hanging there, rosy and furry. Old fig trees fruiting well - I did not know that there used to be fig orchards in this country with dozens sent to London each day. Each glasshouse was a treat, filled with tomatoes or melons, or peppers, chillies, orchids, Pelargoniums, cucumbers etc etc. And everything was immaculate. Not a discoloured leaf, not a bug. I saw one wilted Streptocarpus - the only noticeable defect. The outdoor veg were all as perfect, beautifully laid out. I especially liked the boot scrapers at the corner of each bed, to keep the mud off the paths!

Bliss!

In Euphoric state we hardly noticed the rain that turned from mizzle to something altogether more drenching and sat outside (under umbrellas) for a cup of tea.

A place to revisit. Without a doubt.

Because of the Event, the car park was large. And did I make a note of where the car was? Fortunately I always leave the sunroof up, come rain or shine. ( A gardener's car is a smelly place). But, as another visitor said to me, I should have noted that it was near some sheep droppings. As was his.