Old Town Open Gardens 4 July

Old Town Open Gardens were held on 4 July this year, 12 gardens took part, ranging from suburban gardens, to an allotment, to an acre of landscaped garden. We were very fortunate to have a great group of gardeners who had taken part before and four people new this year. Tickets were £5 each and available beforehand at Earle's Newsagents in Newport St, and at Old Town Hardware in Wood St thanks to the kindness of the owners of those shops who did a great job at selling lots of tickets in advance. We had a Facebook page and advertised the open gardens through the page and on Twitter and Instagram. We arranged a trip round each others gardens on Monday 5 July, but it rained so hard that we only saw half the gardens, and rearranged for the following Tuesday.

We raised a fabulous £2320 through ticket sales, plant, afternoon tea sales and donations for TWIGS and OTRA Gardens, thank you so much to all who supported us.I took a few photos as a reminder of the day:

There seemed to be masses of people visiting between 12 and 5.30pm when the open gardens finished, Jane who was on the gate tried to keep a tally of visitors, and reached 150. Rain kept off most of the day, but settled in by 5.15pm.

We had coffee and walnut cake from Croft Cakes, it was delicious, highly recommended. We also had a delicious lemon drizzle cake made by Mutsai who also helped with making and serving teas and cream teas when the cakes ran out.More cake needed in future.

I was very lucky to have 3 fabulous helpers who haven't been photographed together, although they worked as a fabulous team. Above Mutsai carrying another tray out.