Etal Manor Garden Opening 2018

The garden made just nudging £4,700 which is amazing, but is due to a great number of people doing a lot of work.  We opened fully, with teas, raffles and so on, on October 14th, with the following two Sundays being open by donation and just giving a chance to wander about.  All the money has gone to Hospice Care North Northumberland which I am a little involved with, and delighted to be so.Image result for etal manor garden

We really struggled this year as Storm Ali on 19th September caused enormous damage in the garden, and at one point I was considering cancelling.  Luckily we managed to get a tree surgeon in who spent a day and a half taking down cracked limbs from large trees.  The garden still has branches and half broken trees in it, but that just goes to show that gardens are a continual changing ‘scape.  Added to which the leaves from the trees fell slightly earlier than usual, and the day before the garden opened on October 14th was diabolically wet and we couldn’t cut any footpaths.  By some miracle the main day was dry and the sun even made an appearance late on.  This last weekend was the reverse of the first, with a beautiful morning and day for the Opening Meet on Saturday, and a horrid and wet day on Sunday.  How difficult it is to get it just right!