At the lunch at our new venue, the Bridge Hotel in Walshford, Dee Venner gave us an overview of how the National Garden Scheme started and the range of gardens involved today.
Back in 1859, following problems finding nursing care for his wife at home, William Rathbone, and later with the help of Florence Nightingale, began a “district nursing” scheme. By 1926 Miss Elsie Wragg had the idea of raising money for this through her love of gardening. A year later 609 gardens opened for a shilling a head – and so the National Gardens Scheme began.
By 1930, Winston Churchill and Vita Sackville-West, among others, opened their gardens and the first Guide book was printed in 1932 – with a green cover. By 1949 it had the yellow cover we think of today.
There are now over 3,000 private gardens opened each year, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, alongside historic gardens, some dog friendly and some child friendly! Last year over £35milion was donated to charities – most of them nursing charities including Macmillan Nurses.
Last year, with funds from “Project Giving Back”, Tom Stuart-Smith designed a garden for them at Chelsea and won a Gold Medal, which increased publicity for and awareness of the work which NGS do.
King Charles has agreed to continue being their Patron – as he has been since 2002 as Prince of Wales.
The Yellow Book should be available soon – last year 35 of the private gardens were in Yorkshire, along with gardens of many historic properties – so how many can you visit this year??