TV garden opens as part of village’s charity event

GARDENERS in Barwell will be inviting the public into their usually private outdoor spaces on Sunday.

Fifteen gardens, plus village allotments - with scarecrows - and the parish church will be open to all for a combined price of £3 between noon and 5pm.

Accompanied children will be admitted free.

Four of the private plots are opening for the first time and three are opening after a few years’ break, so even seasoned gardens will be assured of something new.

Among the perennial favourites will be Margaret Pickering’s garden in St Mary’s Court.

Created with her late husband Roger, the plot was famously visited by the late Geoff Hamilton, popular presenter of BBC’s Gardeners World, back in the mid 1990s.

It appeared in Hamilton’s BBC TV series Cottage Gardens, for which the presenter and Mr Pickering were filmed sitting in tin baths attached to the garden wall.

Twenty years after the presenter’s death, the baths - and the memories - remain.

Mrs Pickering said: “Geoff Hamilton always maintained that a garden should be your own creation and have plants and artefacts that you enjoy.

“So come and find some of those interesting quirky features and perhaps buy the odd plant.”

Mrs Pickering will be selling plants from her garden in aid of the Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance.

Money raised from the event overall will be shared between the air ambulance service and Barwell village hall where programmes will be sold on the day.

There will be a tombola and refreshments on sale in the village hall with chilled drinks and ice cream at the George Ward Centre.

Barwell gardener Margaret Pickering, whose plot in St Mary’s Court was visited by the late Geoff Hamilton, presenter of Gardeners World, more than 20 years ago, will be welcoming visitors as part of Barwell Open Gardens event on Sunday. Picture: Jenny...