It’s Summer, and gardens are blooming. If you are looking for inspiration for your garden, or just want to visit a garden, smell the roses and enjoy some tea and cake, check out open gardens in your town.

The biggest organiser of open gardens is The National Garden Scheme which gives visitors unique access to over 3,500 exceptional private gardens. It raises impressive amounts of money for nursing and health charities through admissions, teas and cake.

In Seaford there have been some other open gardens. A couple of weeks ago, I visited a lovely garden in Bowden Rise which opened in aid of St Wilfrids Hospice in Eastbourne.

Last weekend, the new mayor of Seaford, Nazish Adil opened and followed the Mayor’s open garden trail. This raised money this year, for the Youth Counselling Project and Downs Syndrome Development Trust.

I popped into Driftwood garden. This is a compact but beautiful little garden, with lots of quirky corners, and stunning art and sculptures in between the dense colourful planting. Apparently the cake is exceptionally good too! This garden has been featured on Gardeners’ World programme, and last year raised an amazing £19,444 for different charities.

I also visited Seaford Community Garden which is normally only open on Wednesday mornings. It was lovely to meet some of their enthusiastic volunteers, and have a walk around the garden. The echiums really were spectacular, and covered in bees! There were also lots of vegetables and herbs growing well, and plenty of plants for sale which help to raise funds for the project.

My final visit this week was to Seaford Allotments, which were open for NGS. This is a fantastic well organised allotment site, with well tended plots, growing all sorts of fruit, vegetables and flowers. If you are looking for an allotment, it would be a great place to start.

There are lots more open gardens coming up, so don’t miss out..

Next week you can visit Peacehaven open gardens (22nd – 23rd June 2019 2.00pm to 6.00pm)

“Come along to Peacehaven on the lovely South Coast between Brighton and Eastbourne and visit our gardens, along with two community gardens and Peacehaven Allotments. A few of the gardens are new for this year so come along and have a browse at the different styles, all lovingly created by dedicated owners.

Refreshments will be available on both days along with arts and crafts to purchase at two of the gardens.”

On Saturday 29th June, High Trees Garden at 83 Firle Road will be opening its gates again this year to raise funds for Alzheimer’s Research UK. Visitors will be able to enjoy the beautiful gardens, secret woodland and serene koi pond as well as discovering a brand new feature for 2019.

The Brighton Macmillan Coastal Garden Trail runs from 27 July 2019 – Sun 28 July 2019 when you can visit Driftwood Garden and 19 other gardens along the coast between Seaford and Brighton.

The Cupani garden is also open on several dates in June and July. Another beautiful inspiring garden that has a great selection of cakes, and plants for sale.

If there are any I haven’t mentioned, please let  us know!

Do go along if you can, it’s a great way to get new ideas for your garden, and raise some money for charity.

Judy