Kentish Express Ashford & District - What's On
NATIONAL GARDEN SCHEME OPEN DAYS IN THE COUNTY THIS WEEK
3 Chainhurst Cottages, Dairy Lane, Marden The garden surrounding this Kent peg tiled cottage is formally designed with relaxed cottage style planting in shades of soft purple, pink and burgundy. Low box hedging, brick paths, hornbeam and beech hedging divide the garden into small areas, and there are raised beds with cutting flowers and vegetables. When: Sunday, June 23 and Wednesday, June 26 Cost: Adults £5, children free Contact: 01622 820483
Chevening House, Chevening, near Sevenoaks This 27-acre garden has extensive lawns and a woodland area, along with a lake, maze and parterre (ornamental formal garden). When: Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £4, children £1 Contact: 01732 744809
Cottage Farm, Cackets Lane, Cudham The farm’s cottage garden is around one acre with self-sufficient vegetable and fruit gardens, with raised beds growing vegetables for exhibition. Look around a tropical garden, cut flower garden, fernery, greenhouses with tender and tropical fruits and flowers, along with rose-covered pergolas and wildlife ponds. When: June 23 Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, Cost: Adults £5, children free Contact: 01959 532506 Goddards Green, Angley Road, Cranbrook First laid out in the 1920s, the two-acre garden has been redesigned over the past 18 years to combine traditional and modern planting schemes. Features include a fountain, rill and water garden, borders with bulbs, herbaceous plants, flowering shrubs and exotics, birch grove, grass border, pond, kitchen garden and mature mixed orchard. When: Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £5, children free Contact: 01580 715507
Godinton House & Gardens, Godinton Lane, Ashford The magnificent Jacobean house is surrounded by 13 acres of gardens, which include terraced lawns, a rose garden and formal lily pond, intimate Italian Garden and large walled garden with delphiniums, potager, cut flowers and iris border. When: Friday, June 21 Cost: Adults £5, children free Contact: 01233 643854
Great Maytham Hall, Maytham Road, Rolvenden The gardens inspired Frances Hodgson Burnett to write The Secret Garden. Features include parkland, woodland with bluebells, walled garden, rose pergola and pond garden. When: Wednesday, June 26 Cost: Adults £5, children free Contact: 01580 241346 Knowle Hill Farm, Ulcombe, Maidstone The one and a half acre garden has spectacular views of the North Downs, and features a range of plants including roses, agapanthus, verbenas, salvias and grasses. There are also lavender ribbons and a walled white garden. When: Saturday, June 22 Cost: Adults £4, children free Contact: 01622 850240
Little Gables, Holcombe Close, Westerham A range of trees, shrubs, perennials on show in the garden, along with a collection of climbing and bush roses. There is a large pond with fish, water lilies and bog garden, a fruit and vegetable garden, and large greenhouse. When: Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £3.50, children free Contact: www.ngs.co.uk
Lords, Sheldwich, Faversham This unique garden has a herb terrace, cherry orchard grazed by Jacob sheep, lawns, ponds and a wild area. Old specimen trees include redwoods, planes, copper beech, yew hedges and a 120ft tulip tree. When: Thursday, June 27 Cost: Adults £4, children free Contact: 01795 536900
Mount Ephraim, Hernhill, Faversham The estate’s garden has many interesting features, including topiary, rose terraces
leading to a small lake, a rock garden with pools, a water garden and grass maze. When: Thursday, June 27 Cost: Adults £6, children £2.50 (under 4s free) Contact: 01227 751496
Old Bladbean Stud, Bladbean, Canterbury Three acres of interlinked gardens designed and created by the owners from scratch between 2003 and 2011, featuring a romantic walled old rose garden, tranquil yellow and white garden, blended pastels square garden, 300ft-long colour-schemed symmetrical double borders and an organic fruit and vegetable selfsufficiency project. When: Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £5.50, children free Contact: www.ngs.co.uk
Old Buckhurst, Markbeech, near Edenbridge One acre partly-walled cottage garden featuring mixed borders with roses, clematis, wisteria, poppies, iris, peonies and lavender. When: Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £4, children free Contact: 01342 850825
Orchard End, Cock Lane, Spelmonden Road, Horsmonden Contemporary classical garden divided into rooms with linking vistas. It includes hot borders, a white garden, exotics, and an oak and glass summerhouse. There is a formal pool with damp garden, ornamental vegetable potager and wildlife orchards. When: Saturday, June 22, Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £3.50, children free (share to Amyloidosis charity) Contact: 01892 723118
Rogers Rough, Chicks Lane, Kilndown Garden writer’s one and half-acre garden, divided into many smaller gardens containing mainly herbaceous borders, but also rock gardens, shrubs, a small wood and pond. When: Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £4, children free Contact: 01892 890554
Shipbourne, near Tonbridge Gardens open around the parish will include Hookwood House, with herbaceous borders, a herb garden, topiary, nut plat and vegetable garden; Great Oaks House, a romantic garden with herbaceous borders, roses, wild garden with pond and mature trees; and Plantation House, an informal garden with roses, perennials, vegetable garden and sculptures. Teas in the village hall on the village green. When: Saturday, June 22 and Sunday, June 23 Cost: Combined admission adults £5, children free Contact: www.ngs.co.uk Windy Ridge, Victory Road, St Margarets-at-Cliffe The plantsman’s garden on top of a chalk hill has extensive views over the open country and sea. There is an island bed of shrubs and perennials, a large collection of penstemon and salvia, wildlife pond, and new boardwalk garden leading to a raised seating area and viewpoint. There will be plants for sale. When: Sunday, June 23 Cost: Adults £3.50, children free Contact: 01304 853225
Wye Four unusual gardens will be open in the village: 3 Bramble Close, a wild garden with meadow, pond and ditches, mown paths and hedges buzzing with wildlife; Cumberland Court’s courtyard garden, once an asphalt car park now densely planted with a wide range of unusual plants and many pots; Mistral’s garden, once part of an old hard tennis court which now has 250 species of botanical interest, including white and alpine gardens and Yew Trees, a large traditional garden divided into three distinct and secluded areas with lawns, a naturalised wildlife area with a pond, mature trees and wide borders planted with shrubs, grasses and herbaceous perennials and an enclosed potager. When: Sunday, June 23 Cost: Combined admission adults £4.50, children free Contact: www.ngs.co.uk