Most Brits have heard of this organization, NGS, which exists to encourage the opening up of private gardens for visitors. I expect other countries have their equivalent but today was the turn of Frome to show five gardens.

In a way this is in competition to the Frome Secret Gardens which is part of the Frome festival which takes place in July. I think the term secret garden has more cashet then the NGS. Never mind. With the NGS all the profits go to charity and we paid £8 for a ticket which entitled us to visit all five gardens.

I notice that NGS go to great lengths to make sure that the signages and warning notices are in place. I feel this is very professional. For example a warning about deep water or steps. Someone seems to have a supplier of notice is that they send round to all participants. Well done them..

The visiting hours for all five properties were between midday and 5pm so we turned up on the stroke of midday for the first garden which was an inconspicuous bungalow in a 1960s ? build close in suburban Frome.

My goodness what a surprise when we entered. Originally the back garden was about 5 meters to the edge of the back property but 25 years ago the owner and his two neighbours offered to buy a part of an adjoining field so they were able to extend their property enormously and shower it with love and caring.It is wonderfully aspected with great views of unspoiled countryside.

The soil is good and I suspect there is a beneficial micro climate which would explain the advance state of some of the vegetables that we saw.  It is windy though.

Francoise admiring the pond, carp, water lilies and more

view of the adjacent garden and the countryside

some strawberries nearly ready for eating

another view of the countryside

redolent with many types of flowers

a garden outhouse full of photos taken by the home owner

The field acquisition gave another 50 meters length to the garden which transformed it into a paradise for anyone and everyone including grandchildren wanting to play hide and seek.

The second garden was called ‘The Retreat’ I am trying a ‘link sharing’ app to see if it works.

It does.   I am not sure how to add captions so will experiment at a later date. Françoise is sitting on a bench as you see. There was a lot of sculpture dotted around the garden and the logs at the bottom in the wild end reminded me that almost anything can be used to make a sculpture even the logs, creatively piled up as they were.

The lady who ran this garden had increasing difficulty maintaining it because her husband died some years ago so I hope for her sake she gets some help but never the less she greeted us graciously and took an interest in our situation. She said that as a hostess she slightly preferred the Secret Gardens Frome event.

I estimated that she would get about 30 people during the course of today. It is a little bit laid back and out of the way so only people with a car would find it

The third garden in Nunney road we had seen before so not much to comment on. We tried to find a fourth garden called Highclere but in spite of driving around and going to the correct postcode we could not find it.

At this time I was being troubled by a toothache so we left the  scheme with two gardens unseen, and drove back via Mells which is a beautiful little village with tea facilities in a garden in the summer and an amazing general store. All the parking had been taken probably because in addition to being a warm summer weekend it was Father’s Day and around lunchtime so we decided to leave it and come home.