Our gate stewards came well equipped for the weather, and kept a cheerful welcome throughout the day.
From time to time Mrs Barnes appeared to welcome visitors (seen here among the apple blossom - very prolific this season). ( I should say perhaps "Appeared - to welcome visitors" Lynn Truss was right about punctuation)
Many flowers are very late this year, but Rosa Banksia Lutea (aka the yellow Banksian Rose) made a brave show by our back door.. now if you were to come in a week's time it would be really something! But then, visits to gardens are always either a week too early or a week too late. There are some lovely yellow tree paeonies out just now, and a spectacular blue alpine clematis. Our Quince (Cydonia - not the mock quince, Chaenomeles Japonica) is beginning a good show and created some interest. Among the many visitors were some old friends, notably Francis and Tina Cumberledge who are just moving back into the area - we look forward to their garden being on the list next year.
Here they are looking thoroughly cheerful - and the weather brightened too as the visits came to an end. Some had managed to visit all ten open gardens. Ours included a strip of "guerilla gardening" - a neglected plot alongside the police station where extra seedlings find a home. Tomorrow we will join others whose gardens were on show to tour all of them ... I think ours must be among the smallest, and maybe the oddest of them all. It is all in a good cause - Lymington Museum and Art Gallery.
