To all of you who came to see us at our inaugural opening for the NGS on the 8th and 9th June and also to the Hordle Gardening Club who were here at Ferns Lodge Garden the Thursday before.
Thank you for your enthusiasm, kind words and for being here to support the NGS and for putting up with the showers and wind. Also for eating the cakes, drinking the tea, buying the plants and also to those of you who threw tennis balls endlessly for Ghillie the lab, who on Monday morning was a very tired but happy dog!!!
Team Ferns Lodge were totally brilliant and deserve a role of honour for all their hard work and putting up with my organisational glitches and failure to be very good at making cakes –
Simon – who is mission critical and who saw that the garden was fab and put up signs and ignored my flapping.
Sarah – amazing pictures – again!
Ferns Lodge kitchen team – Sophie, Rachel , Sue, Valerie, Adele, Mandy
Ferns Lodge story tellers and more – Michael, Julia and Kurt
Ferns Lodge entrance gate and collector of the spoils – Isabel
Ferns Lodge top plant seller – Barbara
Ferns Lodge epic bakers – Sophie (extra big thanks for the lavender cakes), Barbara, Robin, Jean (amazing tartlets) and Dawn.
The fantastic Melvyn for separating polo ponies and cars, Lisa and her mum for staking so many foxgloves…
And Lawrence for all the social media help.
I felt like a bank robber in reverse as I strode into the bank with a bag (literally) full of money! All now with the NGS with raised nearly £1,800 so THANK YOU again.
As I write this blog in the shed, Ghillie is snoring at my feet, and the garden remains full of colour. The yellow NGS signs are down and the borrowed furniture has found its proper owners again, and all is peace and tranquillity. Of course the high winds and rain have been rather unhelpful but tomorrow is the first day of the rest of the summer and I look forward to some relaxed gardening (and rather less relaxed hedge cutting!).
Over 200 visitors take up a lot of space but the garden found room for them all, and one of the most special moments for me, was seeing a gentleman asleep in a chair on the lawn (hopefully after eating lots of cake). I am pleased that he felt so at home here. It was very cool that you were all able to come and enjoy this special place and we will soon start to prepare for our next opening at the end of August and we would love to see you again and to meet new guests to enjoy the garden in the late summer with the agapanthus, sweet peas and hopefully, many roses in bloom.
Barbara is already plotting for the plants that we will sell on our next open weekend and we promise that salvia is most definitely on the list.
Thank you all and also to the NGS for letting Ferns Lodge Garden join the club…
Contact sue.grant@fernslodge.co.uk.