The weekend of 15th and 16th June will host the 11th year of Horsell Garden Safari and the key to making it work is NEW gardens.
Since 2002, the Horsell Garden Safari has given us all the opportunity to visit our village gardens, to share gardening stories, meet old friends and new, and enjoy a cuppa and cake sitting beneath a parasol and enjoying the fruits of someone else’s labour! All the proceeds go to support Horsell Village Hall, which is undergoing extensive refurbishment. This is such an important building for the village for residents to use and enjoy. We need your help to make this year as successful as ever!
We need six to eight unexplored gardens this time, as well as those of the regulars who have supported us over the years. Do you have a garden that you would like to open, or do you have a neighbour who has a lovely garden?
Let’s make this the best ever Garden Safari, with gardens we have come to love open again and many new gardens to visit for the first time.
So who can open their garden?
Anyone can who loves gardening, whether your garden is big or small, wild flowers and eco-friendly or manicured; flowers, veg or patio; sun-drenched or shaded. Please check below, because we are inviting not only keen gardeners, but have some new ideas:
- You can open for one or both days; please let us know your preference.
- You can open your front or back garden or both, your patio full of bright flowers or ferns, small or large; it is not a competition!
- Your children may have their own garden they would like to show off.
- A garden with historical interest (it may have been a former nursery, farm, forge, mill, prison, brewery, school or have an air raid shelter).
- A house with a history – just to go into the garden and look at from the outside!
- Communal; a close or street where gardeners may like to open together.
- A pub garden.
- A school garden.
Optional extras, which you may be able to offer, will add extra and sometimes new interest to the day:
- Refreshments.
- Plant sales.
- Homemade cakes, jams, crafts; if you would like to sell your homemade produce or work, you could sell in your own garden or a friend’s, please ask.
- An ‘eye-spy’ quiz for children and young at heart! Please let us know if you have an interesting plant, animal or feature in your garden that we could include in a quiz.
Saturday 15 June, at 10.30am, will see the official opening of the Pares Woodland Garden which is being restored by volunteer Horsell residents.
Please support the Garden Safari, by opening your garden and by buying the schedule (£7) in local shops, for a full weekend of neighbourly fun. Don’t be shy! Let us know now if you can open your garden.
Contact
- Gail Bromley on 01483 764521 or G.Bromley@kew.org
- Penny Kramer on 01483 761455 or colinandpenny@sky.com
- Caroline Hughes on 01483 767980 or c.e.hughes@ntlworld.com
Plant Sale for Woking Community Hospital
We have also linked up with the Friends of Woking Community Hospital (WCH) and its annual plant sale will be held in the open garden at Little Upton, Ridgeway during Safari weekend.
The sale will raise funds for the Bradley Unit at WCH, a centre of excellence for neuro rehabilitation services in Surrey. The new, larger unit will have 20 beds, serving patients with brain damage or mobility problems following strokes or car accidents. The NHS can only provide conventional showers, which mean that patients need help to wash themselves and when using the toilets. Therefore funds from the plant sale will go towards a new wet room with wheelchair access, together with hoists and slings.
Penny Kramer
Posted by Greta Hughson 
Horsell & Woodham Resident 