Open Garden

It's the time of year when people with beautiful gardens open them to public view, and little yellow signposts go up pointing the way to them.
One of the gardens on show this year is the one belonging to Noel Kingsbury and Jo Eliot, very much off the beaten track in Brilley, across the river from Hay. Noel designs gardens, and Jo (among her many other activities) chairs Fairtrade Hay. They opened the garden last year for the first time, with great success (despite the weather!) and are hoping to repeat that success this year. The garden is open on 23rd June, and there will be tea and cakes.
Noel Kingsbury also has a book out, Natural Garden Style. He has a non-dogmatic approach to the use of chemicals in a garden, using them where he feels it necessary, and the book is full of gorgeous sweeping vistas of meadows and driftwood furniture and naturalistic planting schemes. I got a copy for my sister when she last came to Hay, and she was delighted - she has an extremely long and narrow garden, but it includes a small orchard and a vegetable patch, and she had the sort of glint in her eye when she left that meant that she was already having thoughts about how to use ideas from the book.