Author: didsburyopengardens

Our garden hosts are busy keeping the borders weeded, planting up new purchases, feeding the veg patch, painting pergolas and relaxing in lockdown. We’ve been sent few photos of ur beautiful gardens, and work in progress by hosts, Deborah Grace, Peter Mackereth, Julie York Yvette Harper-Lee and Simon Hickey. All promising some lovely garden visiting across Didsbury when we can open again.

Shade and colour

Planting Companions

Cornus Kousa ‘Venus’

A lovely archway and pergola

Green and lush

Curves and colours

Hidden Hideaway

Relax in peaceful pergola

Home sweet home

A walled garden and rose wall

Pretty borders

Anyone for tea!

A pathway to who knows where

While our June 2020 event has been postponed (possibly taking place on Sunday, 6 September 2020), there will still be plenty of work done in the gardens. We will ask our garden hosts to share photos and post them here for all to see.

First, here are a few lovely pictures from the gardens of two of our long-standing garden hosts and plantsmen, Bill Godfrey (with some very interesting information he recently shared about the plants) and Simon Hickey – both have gorgeous gardens!

The flower offering for Easter Day deserves to be something very special.  The ‘pride of Madeira’, Echeum fastuosum, growing happily in Manchester with four glorious electric blue flower spikes (the photographs don’t quite do justice to the blue). It is Madeira’s flower, Cornwall’s too seen by friends on an English Language Garden Tour with Michaeljon and Jeremy in the Tresco Abbey garden, Isles of  Scilly. Our plant is three years old and flowering for the first time. It could last another five years if it’s protected from frost. (Bill G.)

This week’s choice has to be the Camellias. Symbols of love and affection:White for true love. Pink for remembering someone who is missed. Red symbolizing passion and deep desire. Violetta’s flower. (She gives me goose pimples just thinking of her). The great spring-time Camellias play their own joke on passers-by by screaming “Come closer, come nearer, nearer and let me touch your nose!”  Gardeners know to resist; they have no scent at all! Not all Camellias are scentless. The scented Camellia sasanquas bloom in the autumn. Tatton and Chatsworth have good examples under glass.  The Moor Cottage red Camellia is 26 this year. (Bill G.

‘Clematis avalanche’ from simon Hickey.

Echeum fastuosum

Colclough’s Camelia

Clematis Avalanche

We are pleased to announce that the Didsbury Open Gardens charity event will take place on Sunday 21st June 2020.

Over 20 lovely gardens will be open, with activities, music, an arts trail, an Owl and Bird of Prey display by the Wild Wings sanctuary, and much more.

Programmes will go on sale at the start of May in A Taste of Honey Deli on Burton Rd, and in The Cheese Hamlet and Cidsin Cafe, in the village centre.

Still only £5 each, the programmes are great value for a family and community day out, with all proceeds going to St Ann’s Hospice.

We hope you can join us!

Maria & Simon

Over 1400 visitors enjoyed this year’s event and more than 30 open spaces and gardens.  The charities that benefited included Maggie’s, St Anns Hospice, Didsbury Good Neighbours, Cancer Research UK, Genesis Appeal, Centre Point, Cystic Fibrosis and others.

A big thank you for supporting the event and to our hosts, musicians, artists, volunteers, and all involved.  It was a lovely day across Didsbury and congratulations are due to everyone involved for the money raised for charity.

Many thanks to Julian Wadden for sponsoring the programme.

Hope to see you next year!

2018 Open Gardens Details for Didsbury In Bloom

A secret path

Japanese Style Garden

Watch the short video on our Twitter page for a taste of what to expect on Sunday 17 June at the Didsbury Open Gardens……and come along. Tickets on sale now at the Cheese Hamlet, Fusion Deli and Holt  Pavilion Cafe in Didsbury Park.  See you there!

With over 30 spaces and gardens, and 8 new gardens this year, plus music, and an Arts Trail, who would want to miss the event on Sunday 17 June.  We have some interesting art being exhibited this year, and no more so than the new collection of Mosaic Birds created by Sally Cartwright for the Didsbury Open Gardens. Inspired by the flying birds from the Willow Pattern and a study of seagulls. Use of broken china from 1970’s kitchen ware, Victorian dinner plates, and a few Orla Kiely accidents – finished with gold leaf.

Her Birds can be viewed in one of our Parkfield Rd South gardens next Sunday and are guaranteed to catch the eye as you wander around this large, beautifully planted family garden.

Not only will we have over 30 open gardens and spaces but we will again offer the Arts Trail, with pop-up exhibitions by various artists in a number of gardens. A summerhouse will host an exhibition by photographer John Eastwood in the Welton Avenue garden, and Eric Jackson of ‘Statement Artworks’ will be a big draw. BBC presenter and DJ Mark Radcliffe described Eric’s work as ‘Brilliant, witty and acerbic’ – so don’t miss it (The Old Surgery Garden) if you are looking for something out of the ordinary, special to the north of England and not available on the high street?

Then there are the ceramicists including Peter Mackereth and Sarah Pink who will set up stall in the Mayfield Drive garden, Nick Roberson’s stonework and sculpture and a demonstration at St James Church, and the lovely Mosaic Birds by Sally Cartwright at one of the Broooklawn Drive gardens.

Lat but not least, visit the Dan Pearson garden at Maggie’s at The Christie and view the work of National Portrait Gallery exhibited artist, Lucy Burscough, who is artist in residence at Maggie’s.

See you there!

Didsbury Good Neighbours (DGN) will be part of the Open gardens day this year, helping senior residents of Didsbury to get to some of the gardens and look around. The charity, which is based at the Holt Pavilion in Didsbury Park, run a variety of activities for people at the Cafe and also a weekly programme of events.

Volunteers support residents in the community and this year we are asking anyone who needs some help to visit some gardens to get in touch with DGN in good time and they will try and help out.  Contact them on Tel: 07749 504298 or email: info@didsburygoodneighbours.org.uk. More details are in the programme which goes on sale this weekend. See Home page for details of where to buy a programme.

Very excited and proud that one of our gardens will be shown on an ITV Love Your Garden programme……you can visit this lovely garden as part of Didsbury Open Gardens on 17 June.  Also we have a Japanese garden which is one of 8 new gardens this year, and one of a few hidden gems that will almost certainly delight visitors.

The programme for this year’s Didsbury Open Garden event has gone to print and will be in the shops next weekend. Very excited about the Arts Trail, Music, Wild Wings Birds of Prey, and over 30 open gardens and spaces.

Thank you Julian Wadden estate agents for sponsoring the printed programme this year.