'You can lead a horse to water

but you can't make him drink', or, in the case of Sandgate's Open Gardens event, 'you can offer the village horticulture, but you can't make them visit!' (I still prefer Dorothy Parker's version but didn't think I should print that.)

Hey ho, such is life and it was a really bad day weatherwise with a deluge just about the time we were all due to open our garden gates and let them in. Still, the hardy souls who braved the elements seemed to enjoy themselves, and we are very grateful indeed for their support. We had visitors from Hythe, Canterbury and Ashford, so the word had got around, as well as some Sandgate residents whom we'd not met before. Plus we raised just over £200 for the Sandgate Community Trust, so not a complete waste of time.

The other participating gardeners have all been thanked personally, but I must publish here my gratitude for their stirling efforts. Many of them are quite elderly and their energy and enthusiasm put me to shame. I just hope I shall be around as long to enjoy the fruits of my labours.

The garden still looks tidy and verdant which, given the amount of rain recently fallen, is not surprising and, at last, I have one sweetpea flower in bloom. Albeit a very small sweetpea flower, but the promise is there of more to come. There are dahlias too, with skeletal leaves because the flesh has been eaten away, but still we have dahlias, cosmos, more hardy geraniums, roses with bowed heads weighted down by the wet, and even a lime green nicotiana. The leaves of the echiums still impress but don't produce any flowers, as yet, and the leaves of nicotiana sylvestris almost beat them for size; can't wait for those flowers to appear.

Now the big day has come and gone I'm taking some time to plan for the future, which most probably won't include opening the garden again. Friends and family are welcome to come anytime and toil up the slopes, but my thoughts are flying forward to projects for the autumn and winter months. I feel the need to start afresh, by digging up and replanting, moving and replacing, just making a change; a new plot even?. Should there be anything worth shouting about I'll let you know, in the meantime dear followers, thank you for reading and happy gardening!