Guernsey and Sark? Blooming gorgeous!

THERE aren’t many gardens where you have to show your photo ID to get in, but then how often do you get to admire the grounds of a jail? During a tour of private gardens in Guernsey and Sark, run by the Royal Horticultural Society, we looked around Guernsey prison, where the inmates grow onions, peppers, pumpkins and chillies in greenhouses, attend horticulture classes and liaise with kitchen staff to plan menus using their produce.

The Channel Islands are closer to France than England, and are sunnier than the rest of the UK, which means a long growing season.

Guernsey is the second largest Channel island, measuring about 25 square miles. To the east sits Sark, which is just three miles long.

Our group comprised 28 greenfingered enthusiasts, and we were led by clematis expert Raymond Evison and Chelsea gold medallist Christopher Bailes, a former curator of the RHS garden Rosemoor in North Devon.

All the gardens we saw were testimony to their owners’ passion.

At Grange Court, Pat Johnson, a former farmer from Devon, has created a cactus vinery and rose garden, while Jen Monahan’s La Petite Vallee is a brilliant mix of evergreen and exotics that thrive in the mild climate.

A visit to Raymond’s Guernsey Clematis Nursery was a highlight for many in our group. Astonishingly, Raymond has two million of the plants – 25 per cent of the world market.

Next we moved on to Sark, the island that has turned its back on the 21st Century. No cars are allowed, there’s no street lighting and planes aren’t allowed to fly overhead. The island also has its own feudal parliament. A succession of horse-drawn carts took us through a tangled landscape of blackberries and sloes, and past houses with stone steps leading to the chimneys, to La Seigneurie, one of the most beautiful manor houses in the Channel Islands. It has been home to the Seigneur since 1730 and the garden’s high walls protect the lush vegetation within.

On Guernsey, our hotel was La Barbarie, near Saints Bay, where Rick Stein has praised the lobster as the best he has tasted. On Sark, we stayed at Stocks, a 16th Century farmhouse, where the crab tian and beurre noisette panna cotta was simply divine.

There’s a gentle pace to life on these islands, with honesty boxes for veg placed outside houses.

The tour was fun and enlightening – armed with the wealth of information, one couple from Exeter declared they were going home to ‘take a chainsaw’ to one of their maple trees.