Seaford Scene August 2019

Everyone’s agreed that it’s a
marvellous summer for roses.
They are burgeoning in glorious
reds, pinks, creams, yellows… well,
they are in our lovely garden at
the Crouch; the only trouble is
that we don’t know what most of
them are called! Tut, call ourselves
gardeners… So what we are asking
is for you to look at the pictures and
try to identify them for us. And your
reward for reliably doing so? A plant
of your choice from our well-stocked
sales table.
And roses aren’t the only
thing that’s doing well.
All the veg is ramping up
and in the poly tunnel
tomatoes planted out four
weeks back had grown tall
and bushy early in July and
were beginning to fruit, with
some tomatoes already
reddening ready for the
sales table.
As you read this we will have been
open to raise money for the Macmillan Trail. The
Macmillan charity, Katie told us over our tea break,
receives more money from people visiting National
Garden Scheme gardens than from any other source.
She was reporting about
her and Allison’s visit to
the NGS tea party at
Herstmonceux Castle at
which 200 or so people
who open their gardens
for the organisation in
East and Mid Sussex,
including ourselves, were thanked for their
efforts. They learnt that in 2018 your visits to NGS
gardens resulted in a record £3.1m being donated to
nursing and health charities, with £500,000 going to
Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie and Hospice
UK, £400,000 to Carers
Trust, £250,000 to Queen’s
Nursing Institute, £185,000
to Parkinson’s UK,
£145,000 to MS
Society, £130,000
to Perennial, a
charity which
helps those
who work in horticulture
when times get tough, and £490,000 to
a variety of other causes. So an extra
thank you to those of you who also
visited us when we opened for NGS
in May.
So to return to our own garden, we are
delighted that the business community
is continuing to support us. For example,
thanks are due to VR Flowers & Son,
the furniture shop, for its donations
of carpet for our shed roof
gardens and compost heap,
and to Badger Inks for its
discount on printing materials.
Back to the tea break and Val
is apologising for reorganising
the shed and risking no one
being able to find anything. She
is assured that because it had
got so untidy we no longer knew
where to look anyway! Right, coffee break over and it’s
back to work, but when you visit do take a moment
to enjoy the roses. The garden is open on Wednesday
mornings all year round and during the rest of the
summer on Saturday mornings too, from 10am until
noon, so come in and Name That Rose.
The Garden Team
Photos (from top): Four weeks ago Phil (pictured) and
James were planting these tomatoes in the poly tunnel
and in early July their fruits were ripening; a free plant if
you can correctly identify the cream, pink, red and yellow
roses pictured on this page; Allison, centre, enjoys the NGS
cream tea.
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