Today for the first time ever I opened my garden for an “open garden day.” I was nervous about doing it, but so glad I did!!

Opening your garden up is like opening a very special private and creative part of you. And as people tour your garden you always wonder are they going to see what you see? Appreciate what you appreciate? And my garden is different from a lot of US gardens because it’s more in the English and Irish cottage garden and woodland garden style.

I have worked really hard on this garden and there is a lot of me in it, and as it has started to mature I have had plant societies and other groups preview my garden to be potentially included on a garden tour, but thus far none of them have found my garden good enough.

One plant society didn’t like it because I did not have little plastic sticks sticking up next to every plant to identify every single plant. And then one of them told me how I should be pruning my Japanese maple and I didn’t really care for that because it wasn’t a helpful suggestion it was really meant as a criticism.

And then there was a garden tour that I had thought I really wanted to be part of because it was put on by my alma mater. But the mothers today who form the committee don’t come themselves to preview the gardens, they send paid staff from the school.

And while I was happy to have those ladies look at the garden, the parents were supposed to be working on this event committee never even followed up with me and overall, they made me feel that my garden wasn’t good enough. Right or wrong that’s how they made me feel. And that was predominately because they couldn’t be bothered to come themselves to look at it and it was their event. And as an alumni of the school I would’ve thought they would’ve at least made an effort.

But I decided to open my garden up today on July 4th, for a few hours to the members of my garden group. To see how people would respond and if they would come. Because that’s another thing when you do something like this you always wonder will they come?

And people did come over today and they seemed like they really liked my garden and I was so happy to share it with them and they stayed a while. It made me happy to share what I’ve created with like-minded souls.

In the United Kingdom they do open garden days quite a bit. That was one of the things that made me decide to just try this on my terms. I had water for everyone and I had done some water infused with lemons, limes, apple mint, and fresh basil from my garden. And as a nod to the UK I also put out some Scottish shortbread.

I think I will do this again in the future and I hope people will come back.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit my garden today! I’m going to stake up some flowers now before the rain comes!

Happy Independence Day!!!