Glorious Gardens

There are 82 separate garden experiences in The Yellow Book. That means you could easily visit more than one every week.

And while the avids will try and do them all, what horticulture vultures really want to know is who are opening the new gardens and what those gardens contain.

As patron Prince Charles – a keen garden visitor himself – puts it in the Yellow Book’s introduction: “I know from my own visits to gardens that I enjoy returning to familiar places, but equally I look forward to being introduced to unknown treasures.”

New Yellow Book additions for Dorset include 63 East Street and Hurford House, opening for the first time as part of Beaminster open gardens in June, promising ‘masses of roses, unusual climbers, shrubs and swathes of perennials’.

Also opening for the first time is Kitemoor Cottage in Manswood, Wimborne, home of Alan and Diana Guy, who want to show off their ‘Half acre plantsperson’s garden’ with ‘glorious countryside views’.

Down in Lyme Regis in Sidmouth Road is Little Cliff, which boasts white, hot and bog gardens, as well as ‘spectacular views of Lyme Bay’.

Lytchett Minster Gardens will be showing off 57 Dorchester Road and Friars Green, in addition to popular favourites Old Button Cottage, Heron House, plus gardens on Old Forge and Orchard Closes. Pleached limes, cottage borders and hardy orchids await the visitor to new opening Staddlestones, at 14 Witchampton Mill, Witchampton.

This garden will be joining the new delights of Abbey Cottage, Swiss Cottage and Yellow Cottage as part of the new group opening attraction of Witchampton Gardens.

www.ngs.org.uk