Garden Open Days

Back in the US, I belonged to The Garden Conservancy and every year I eagerly anticipated the publication of their new Open Days Directory. Like the Good Garden Guides and the Yellow Book in Great Britain, the Open Days Directory features a complete listing of all the open days garden tours throughout the country and participating gardens, including garden descriptions, hours, and directions. (A comprehensive listing of public gardens is also included for each region.)

Open Days

Columbia & Duchess county, NY

And I used the directory to visit many beautiful private and public gardens all over the country when I traveled ... and especially the ones in my own backyard in New York and New Jersey.

Broccoli Hall, Maxine Paetro's house and garden

Over the years, I visited gardens in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York state, Virginia, the Carolinas, California, Colorado, Florida, Washington state, and many, many more.

Blogger & author Margaret Roach's house and garden

The gardens are owned and maintained by garden bloggers, authors, landscape designers and just plain old people who love to garden. Many of the gardens are on historic properties or showcase a particular type of landscape design or cultivar. They are all fascinating as are the gardeners themselves.

And the owners were always available to chat about their gardens and share tips and sources for their plantings. If you were really lucky, they might give you some seeds or a cutting. For someone like me, a gardener-in-perpetual-training, this was an invaluable resource.

my monkey puzzle started from a seed given to me at Agatha Christie's garden at Greenway in Devon

Possibly inspired by the  US's Garden Conservancy or Britain's National Trust, Gardens of the Golden City was the brainchild of Denise Voysey and Esther Townsend, of the Randburg Horticultural Society. With the encouragement of Peggy Morgan, all are past chairladies.

Starting on a very small scale in 1997, garden clubs in and around Johannesburg were invited to join in by finding gardens in their areas which would be appreciated by the garden loving public. Since then Gardens of the Golden City open days have become a keenly anticipated event in Johannesburg.

Johannesburg's wonderful gardens, both very large and very small give great pleasure and inspiration to visitors. And like the gardeners of the Garden Conservancy, private garden owners are the real heroes of the entire endeavor. With their generosity and kindness of spirit in sharing their gardens, talking with the visitors about their achievements, planning, planting, cultivation; plus a hundred and one other questions, all benefit from a happy day in the garden.

The aim of Gardens of the Golden City, is to raise funds for various charities such as Jo'burg Child Welfare, BirdLife South Africa and 67 Blankets. This is an entirely voluntary organisation. All time and expenses in selecting the gardens are performed on a voluntary basis by members of the committee of Gardens of the Golden City.

But unlike the Garden Conservancy in the US which is nationwide, Gardens of the Golden City is limited to the gardens of Johannesburg and environs. I will have to check if there are similar organizations in the Cape Town and Winelands area of the Western Cape and along the Garden Route. Got to be, right?



Last year I visited the Gardens of St. Christopher in Hyde Park and I am going again next weekend. According to the following calendar, this weekend is the Upper Houghton Heritage Gardens open day. I can't think of a better way to celebrate spring in Johannesburg.


 

2014 Spring Gardens Calendar

6th/7th of September	Lynne Nelson Garden & Hilary Southall Garden
10th/14th of September	21st World Orchid Conference
20th/21st of September 21st ONLY	Viv Howorth Garden Valverde
4th/5th of October	Upper Houghton Heritage Gardens
11th/12th of October	Gardens of St. Christopher.
18th/19th of October	Tembani Garden
30th/31st of October – 1st/2nd of November	Beechwood Garden