Cator Rd Open Gardens

[sean]

I travelled to Sydenham last Sunday to visit the three gardens open to the public on Cator Rd. All money donated to the NSPCC.

I was very disappointed with all the gardens. The first one I visited was just a great expanse of grass with token vegetables. It appeared that they were much more interested in showing off their kitchen than the garden.

The second one I visited must have been landscaped by the same company as the first garden. The same features appeared and even the layout was very similar - at least this garden has some more flowers.

The final garden was much better. It was split into three sections. One with grass and large borders through to a children's play area and vegetable garden. But in this section many of the raised beds were empty and people were left wondering around making comments about how everything was bare.

I am aware that the whole point was to raise money for charity but a lot of visitors felt robbed by the whole experience.

In September Kent House allotment society are holding their annual Open Day on Sunday 6 September from 11am until 3pm. Fruit & Veg Show, BBQ and teas, tours and stalls. Entry £2 with children free, but must be accompanied by an adult. Guide dogs only. All in aid of NSPCC.

This will be a good day out for those interested in real gardening.

[Tim Lund]

Well, Sean, thanks for the plug for the upcoming NSPCC Open Day at my allotments

In September Kent House allotment society are holding their annual Open Day on Sunday 6 September from 11am until 3pm. Fruit & Veg Show, BBQ and teas, tours and stalls. Entry £2 with children free, but must be accompanied by an adult. Guide dogs only. All in aid of NSPCC.

This will be a good day out for those interested in really gardening.

But I can't agree with you about the Cator Road gardens - they're also 'real', even if as I went round I couldn't help wondering how much it had all cost, while my wife reminded me that they just weren't my style. But I really enjoyed them, and am grateful to the owners for opening them up, and the NSPCC staff for serving teas, etc.

[charlieandpip]

Sean

So sorry you did not enjoy your day as much as many, many others.....

The weather was fantastic and the comments overwhelmingly positive. With numerous comments such as 'wow, I never realised these houses had such great gardens' and requests for contact details for the landscapers, I might suggest you may have been in a minority for whom the contemporary style of the gardens may not have been to your taste.

As for your comments regarding a lack of colour in the borders and vegetables in the garden, as you will no doubt appreciate it is hard to extend the peak period of the gardens into mid-August, and it is frustrating for those involved that we had to have a date this late in the year at the direction of the NSPCC.

And to clear up any confusion, there were only 7 empty raised beds from a total of 27! These had been home to some amazing broad beans and peas until a month ago.... and have now got some new vegetables germinating.

As you may have guessed I am one of the people who was prepared to let over 500 strangers 'trample' through my garden on Sunday, and had spent three months of hard graft to get it to a level where the most critical observer would enjoy the space. And with over £2000 raised for the NSPCC the day is a thing of extreme pride for all involved.

I would also like to thank publicly all those who volunteered their time to help, bake cakes, serve teas and coffees,... and a special thank you to The Cake Store on the high street for their generous donation of the most amazing cake (see below).

As for your comment 'for those interested in really gardening' I will reserve my comments as we are in polite company.

I have to admit I found it wonderful to see Cator Road so alive with people all having a great day.

Photos from the day below for those of you who came, and for those of you who couldn't make it, to enjoy. If you have photos of your own please post them here too!

cheers
charlie

[sean]

charlieandpip - it was certainly interesting to see how large the gardens were especially after walking past Alexandra Park so many times and often wondered on their size. Your garden certainly was the most interesting garden out of the three and this was commented on by others while I was in the other gardens. The size of the borders were a decent size unlike the other gardens.

Maybe having spent many days walking around gardens in the Yellow Book scheme I have become spoilt.

Tim - I saw you as I entered the first garden but was talking to a fellow allotment holder who was just leaving. The Trewsbury gang will be heading to your open day. Are non-Kent House growers allowed to enter your Veg & Flower competition?

[charlieandpip]

thank you - it's gratifying when one bears in mind that we both hold down full time jobs (admittedly with one of us working from home), have two small children and do all the work on the garden ourselves!

[Tim Lund]

Thinking more about what might be called locally the Cator Road style of gardening - though it's basically Gertude Jekyll - last Sunday for me was a great demonstration of how it works for creating a relaxed social space, where people can meet and chat, or drift off if they don't want to be chatting, and sit down in a corner if they want to be quiet, or enjoy watching kids enjoying themselves.

[emmaspencer]

Sean
How very disappointing and demoralising that you chose to post such negative comments about our Open Gardens on Sunday.
We were not entering a competition, we were raising money for charity – nearly £2500 was raised, and we received so many positive comments and thanks for the afternoon.

I find your comments irritating, uncharitable and inappropriate, especially being posted on Sydenhams’ website, where presumably we are trying to promote events and neighbourhood collaboration. My intention is to get more houses in our road involved next year and make it a really fun day, but with your comments I suddenly feel a little less enthusiastic.

As we all did, I put in a huge amount of work, on the garden (which was bare 18 months ago – believe me the beds are not small if you’re filling them from scratch!), and also in promoting the event. I feel genuinely disappointed with your remarks.

Emma

[sean]

we received so many positive comments and thanks for the afternoon.

People are hardly going to come up to you and express any negative feedback. You opened your garden to the public and seem happy to take the positive viewers of visitors and therefore must accept negative feedback. You are not going to please everyone. The couple I ended up speaking to in one of the gardens expressed a view that even though it was for charity they only felt that one garden gave them value for their entrance fee. If you can't accept all types of feedback then close the garden gate.

I understand from someone on the High Street that Sydenham Garden was also opened on the same day?!? I didn't see any posters around the area so cannot confirm if this was correct.

I've looked on the net and their next day is Saturday 26 September, an Autumn Fair - a day for visitors. We will also celebrate new funding from Ecominds - part of the Big Lottery.

[emmaspencer]

[charlieandpip]

a few more pics....

[debolader]

I visited all 3 gardens on Sunday and thought they were all beautiful. Having a large garden myself I can appreciate the amount of work it takes to get them fit for showing.

I particularly like contemporary gardens and so it is nice to get an opportunity to see them. I found them inspirational and went home with ideas to improve my own.

Thank you for being brave enough to open your gardens and I look forward to seeing how they evolve over time.

[andrewandsue]

Sean
I am sorry you didn't enjoy visiting our garden as much as we enjoyed welcoming you and over 400 other visitors last Sunday.
Like the other 2 couples, we have worked extremely hard on our garden. Over the last 2 years it has been transformed - as you will have seen from the "before" photos which were on display. Given that you have gone to the trouble of so publicly expressing your disappointment, you obviously feel we have done a pretty poor job! The best thing you could say about our garden was that "at least it had some more flowers".
We also worked hard on the day to ensure that our visitors had a relaxed and enjoyable afternoon. Again, in your case, we obviously failed as you say you felt "robbed". If you care to drop by I will happily refund your £4 admission.
Regards
Andrew

[jeff]

Sean
Were we at the same gardens?
I thought they were wonderful and all very different. Look at the pictures that have been posted. How can you say the first 2 gardens are very similar? One is a single room largely laid to lawn, the other is broken into 2 rooms with extensive borders and fantastic planting. You obviously liked it well enough to use a photo of it on your post. The third garden is 3 rooms and perfectly maintained.
Cator Road gardeners - please don't think that Sean's comments are representative. I spent most of the afternoon with you and didn't hear a single negative comment from any other visitor. Keep up the good work.
Sean - my mother always taught me that if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all.
Jeff

[sean]

It's nice to see that this topic has attrached so many new users to this forum.

[jeff]

I am surprised more people haven't signed up to tell you what an ungrateful little **** you are!

[leenewham]

Jeff, I thought you said "if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all".

I think its fine for anyone on these forums to state their opinion, positive or otherwise about matters relating to Sydenham. Often good comes out of it and a bit of provokatation gets people talking. I think that's good for the forum and ultimately good for Sydenham.

Personal insults (unless tongue in cheek and taken as such) are (in my opinion) not fine.

In this instance, if the original poster hadn't posted anything, I would never have even heard of this open day, never seen these pictures.

Everything works out in the end.

[Wildeye]

Surely the whole point of an open garden scheme is to allow people to see a wide variety of gardens and styles for inspiration and interest. I thought all the gardens were lovely. As they are all family gardens they need to work for a wide range of age groups and interests and have play and social space as well as interesting planting. All the gardens achieved this perfectly in very different ways, all the many visitors I met seemed to have a favourite but like aspects of each, and a great number of people seemed to be having a lovely time and enjoying their afternoon very much. I would have thought a big thank you is due to the three families for opening the gardens, and Sean perhaps you should chalk it up to experience and stick to allotment shows to avoid the 'I've been robbed' feeling !

[jeff]

Apologies - yes, of course it was intended to be tongue in cheek.
I found this forum via Google. I forgot to take my camera with me on the day and was looking for some photos of the gardens.
Does anybody have any more photos they can post?

[vencio]

it's nice to see the photos.

my garden is very, very small compared to this, and I find it hard enough to manage a few sunflowers and tomatoes, so i can't imagine how much hard work has to go into maintaining these gardens. i would love to be a better gardener, spend more time growing and caring for the plants, etc. if one day i have a garden half as nice as those pictured here, i would be very, very happy

[rob]

I travelled to Sydenham to visit the three gardens last Sunday and had a really enjoyable afternoon along with many others. Thanks to the owners who worked so hard and also to the volunteers serving up the excellent refreshments and cakes. Congratulations on raising so much money for the NSPCC.

These events are interesting because you see many different approaches to gardening. Whether or not they are all to your personal taste, you certainly pick up ideas and inspiration from each. It is very unfair to imply that someone's motivation for opening up their garden was to show off their kitchen. The distinct feeling I took from the day was that the organisers were motivated by doing something for charity and for their local community.

I do hope that others will not be put off taking part in future events by the prospect of receiving criticism on a public forum.