Coronavirus: Private gardens open virtually to support NGS charities

For 90 years, the National Garden Scheme (NGS) has given people the chance to visit some of the best private gardens in England and Wales.

It has given more than £60m to health charities, raised through admission charges and tea and cake sales.

But coronavirus has forced the gardens to close to visitors for the first time in the scheme's long history.

This year, gardeners are showing off their efforts with videos and urging people to donate money online instead.

Gardener and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh has shared a tour of his garden near Alton in Hampshire, filmed last year, to encourage others to participate and donate.

He said: "Our gardens... they offer us a sheet anchor in times of turmoil - never more so than this year.

"I think it's a wonderful idea [virtual tours] - typical of the resourcefulness that has kept the National Garden Scheme going for over 90 years."

Every year about 3,500 gardeners open their outside spaces to visitors for the NGS, but this year the organisation expects its income to be down by 80%.

Bridget Bowen has been welcoming visitors to her garden at Ivy House in Dorset's Piddle Valley since 2002 and had been planning her most ambitious year yet with seven openings.

Having managed to open once before restrictions came into force, the rest of the schedule has been cancelled, so she filmed a tour, led by her rescue dog Alfie, and is selling plants from a trolley on her driveway, with some of the proceeds going to the NGS.

Mrs Bowen said, with the garden at its peak, she and her husband felt "sadness and disappointment" at having to close it to visitors.

She said: "With the lack of any very cold weather since Christmas and plentiful supplies of rain in February, the garden has flowered better than any year since we arrived in 1986."

Francine Raymond is one of 20 people who open their gardens in Whitstable in Kent.

She had been due to open for her fifth year on 14 June but has carried on getting ready as if it will happen.

She said: "It's been a saviour during the lockdown but I miss doing it without the support of the other 19 gardeners.

"This would have been our fifth year of opening and I'll miss our 1,000 or so visitors.

"It's a brilliant way of raising money in great company and proving you don't need rolling acres to open."

Sally and Tony Harden have lived at Maithlin Cottage, at the foot of the Mendips in Somerset, for 34 years and opened their wildlife-friendly garden for the first time last June as part of a group opening with their neighbours.

Mrs Harden said coronavirus restrictions meant they had been unable to see their family, including two grandchildren in the USA, but had more time to tend their borders and greenhouse.

She said: "Having the garden has been an excellent distractor and therapy.

"We felt sad not to be able to share our garden this year but more sad that the donations to such good causes would not be possible in the same way... that led us to sow extra vegetable and tomato seeds to sell them to raise some funds for the NGS."

Graham and Angela O'Connell have been opening their garden for 27 years and have welcomed thousands of visitors during that time.

Their long narrow plot in Frimley Green has earned a gold award for wildlife gardening from Surrey Wildlife Trust.

Mr O'Connell said: "This year has certainly been a strange one. We feel almost guilty when we say we have really enjoyed spending so much time in the garden, especially when you hear of the dreadful time many others have suffered.

"This year it has had lots of attention and is perhaps looking better than ever. That is why we were keen to let people see the garden, despite the lockdown, by having an NGS virtual tour.

"We filmed it all ourselves and have not done anything like this before so it has been particularly rewarding to get so much wonderful feedback, even from as far afield as Greece."