A letter from a Thomasina Tarling, which appears in this septembers
RHS The Garden magazine reminds me to ask if there has ever been an
anthropological study made on those who visit 'open gardens' and those
who present their private gardens to the public and if so, has it ever
been published or reported on?

To be honest, I don't quite know what she's getting at. I haven't been
to many and with good reason.
The first was quite memorable.

The front garden was a patch of around 8sq metres of mown grass been
intruded upon by a large hydrangea.
Access to the back garden was via a side path and gate. The frame of
the gate was attached to a previous frame. This lead to a small back
garden which was of the size where often, typically, the desire to
have a decent sized patio had gobbled up the lawn space to the point
of ridicule.
The 'lawn' itself was mown, but weedy and uneven.
On either side of the garden there ran a path alongside narrow,
sparsely populated flower beds. Though the surviving bedding plants
sported a nice bit of colour.
These were flanked by a boundary fence on one side made up of
deteriorating concrete slates which had been whitewashed to hold them
together, sort to speak. Clearly, No plant was allowed to grow near it
so as not to hamper future painting projects.

A small upturned terracotta pot sat at one point of the 'lawn'. It was
the only thing to look at and its purpose turned out to be to cover
the anger/base of a rotary line

And that was it.
Well, except for the visitors who, quite strangely (I thought) were
very impressed and spoke at great length to each other about plants
and features clearly not there at all.

The second garden was much bigger, but again what was missing was more
apparent then what was to see. I gave up after that.
The visitors on that occasion were capable of more pretentiousness
that a good eye for design or plant knowledge.

It all reminds me a been invited to a child's 'afternoon tea' where
the snacks on offer are the *most* delicious ever tasted, the tea is
of the most exquisite brew, the tableware the finest money can by and
the table cloth of such magical quality that in a flash it often
doubles up as a magic carpet.
So, you lean forward to accept your invisible cup of non-existent tea
and you convey your wonderment on it lovely taste and listen carefully
to the narratives on offer about your new landscape. The bird hut in
the corner is the woods were little red riding hood passed through,
the firewood that had been left drop from the shed is actually
pinocchio in disguise and so on.

And then another child interupts insisting his/her imaginings should
be the one to follow.

So, about that anthropological study... anyone??