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We closed the garden this week, with great relief. It’s knackering opening it, but necessary since it helps pay for its development and maintenance. Sadly, someone had not enjoyed their visit – see above. This is on Google – if you google ‘Veddw’ that is what you will find, I think.

It’s always sad to see something like this. We’d refund if asked. But it’s useful and we need to consider what she is saying. 

True, the planting is informal.

Veddw Crescent Border and lawn, July copyright Anne Wareham

You will never find a cut edge to a lawn or the grass here. See above – we edge the lawn with Alchemilla mollis. And that is not just because it is easier to maintain – I prefer the look. I think the result will often look unkempt to those who prefer their gardens formal and with cut edges and weedless bare soil, especially come late summer. So that preference – for the informal – informs the planting and is a total difference in taste between ourselves and Paty. We should perhaps make it clearer that this is how Veddw is before people get here. We do tell them at the gate:

Notice on the gate at Veddw

The conflation of the cost of entry with the time it takes to see the garden is interesting, but not easy for us to address. Visitors vary a good deal in how long they spend here. We once had to ask a group to leave after two hours and that resulted in a formal complaint from the party leader – so that I now ask people to let us know if they will want to stay longer –

Coach parties usually stay about an hour and a half. If you would like to stay longer, please let us know when you book.

Someone on Facebook suggested that if we provided tea and cake people would not only stay longer, but they would feel that they’d had better value not only because of the cake but because they’d stayed longer. That may be true and is depressing for us. There is nowhere for people to have their tea and cake out of the rain, even if we could face making and serving it.

It’s perhaps worth saying that we never intended to create a tourist attraction and if we had I think it wouldn’t have been a garden. Even if it had been a garden, it would have been in the South East of the country where the garden visitors mostly are if that had been our intention. And it would have had suitable outbuildings for shops and cafe and other fund raising things. But we never intended that and we still don’t. We earn our livings in other ways and fund just the garden by opening it. We like to share it too. Would have been an even madder project if we never shared it. We are not an NGS garden (see here) nor a commercial garden. Perhaps we are unique?

Leymus Bed at Veddw copyright Anne Wareham

Random picture of Veddw to cheer you up.

But the lack of teas thing has haunted us. I once did a talk at a literary festival and was critical of the Sacred Laskett. No-one cared much about that and had nothing much to say about it. But the fact that we open the garden and don’t serve teas was greeted with falling off seats. Well – not quite, but certainly amazement.

I’m sorry to say that it would not be worth our while to open the garden for £4. In fact, I am rather more inclined to raise our entrance in the hope that that would mean people might research very carefully whether they really want to visit. (And look up local, off site tea places – we recommend  The Anchor at Tintern  – though the Abbey is in view and is badly knocked about).

Wild garden Veddw

Bet you’re not surprised she didn’t like it…

I have encouraged and benefited from criticism of the garden for many years – see here  and here. Please join in – on Google, here, by email or on Social Media. We will always take you seriously and sometimes the benefits are enormous. We appreciate it – especially when find we can make good changes to the garden aesthetically.

But I wish you’d give up about tea and cake. Enough now.

Xxxxx

No – it seems important to say it again – there is nowhere in the garden to make or eat teas without getting wet if it rains.

 

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