Ivy Croft Garden and how to find gardens to visit

 When looking for gardens to visit in an area, we use a mixture of RHS Partner Gardens, The National Trust, NGS booklets and this year Gardeners' World had the 2 for 1 Gardens scheme which lists 416 gardens to visit. Even I would find that difficult, but it's a good reference guide for gardens in the UK and I intend to keep the booklet. 

It was through the 2 for 1 booklet that we discovered Ivy Croft Garden at Upper Ivington, near Leominster. When we arrived, the five bar gate was firmly shut, and the notice on the gate indicated we should ring to make an appointment which we did. Roger answered but conversation was made difficult by a poor phone line, however when he discovered we were actually outside, he let us in and we wandered around the 4 acres of garden around the 17 century house where cider was once made. Roger and Sue arrived in 1996 and have been working on the garden ever since; if you look at the website you can see they open on specific days rather than for random passers by such as us.

I only took two photographs of the garden, above a hydrangea panniculata and below a perennial foxglove. 

They have a fantastic collection of plants at Ivy Croft Garden; I bought some lovely things including a red mimulus, flat topped aeonium which is doing really well, unusual sempervivums, a beautiful purple buddleia after seeing lots of butterflies on them, a large marigold and a small leaved begonia which is now quite large. I should probably include photos of the plants. Roger gave us lots of useful tips on how to get the best out of plants, propagation tips, including snowdrops, and a little bit about his famous gardening neighbour. 

Wehope to go back for snowdrop Thursdays in 2024.