It has been a somewhat difficult start to a new year here, both at a personal level and in the wider context of global events. This is why I have been silent since Christmas but, with an unprecedented upsurge in subscribers (waving hello to new subscribers), I felt I needed to break the silence.
When I find myself in times of trouble, it is not Mother Mary who comes to me as she apparently inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Rather, it is the garden that wraps around my day. Always, as I reach the reflective time at the end of the day, when Mark’s and my ritual is to sit together and have a drink (sometimes alcoholic and sometimes just homeopathic gins – lime and soda in a glass with just the memory of actual gin), I think how lucky I am in life to have washed up living in such a special environment.
We don’t often open the garden these days but I had booked two summer tours from overseas. One cancelled a couple of months ago (presumably advance sales were too slow) so that left one for this weekend. It has dominated my days since just before Christmas. Everything I did in the garden was driven by the deadline of having the place spruce and ready for this weekend. I will delay cutting those back until after, I would think, rather than making a gap. The Aurelian lilies will be at their peak, I thought while I hoped some of the auratums would also be open. When Lloyd and Zach returned to work last Monday after the Christmas break, it was action stations. The pressure was on. We are an experienced and well-oiled machine on this but it is quite a lot of extra work and a different focus to our usual days.
Morning tea was required and I arranged extra help from a friend and planned to spend Friday baking. If you have ever been here to one of these situations you will recognise my menu because I keep to the tried and true – Annabel’s (Langbein) Orange Lightning Cake, Lemon Yoghurt Cake and Edmond’s hokey pokey biscuits with added oats or walnuts. My fail-safe recipes.
Not having heard from the NZ company that was managing logistics for the tour since early December, I started asking on Monday for final numbers and arrival and departure times. And on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I phoned them and they said they would get back to me. A few hours later, they did get back by email – to cancel. Apparently, they can no longer fit us in to their itinerary.
It was discombobulating. Zach felt the same as priorities suddenly changed and the pressure was removed. At first I was angry at the unacceptably short notice and cavalier attitude. Now I am resigned to the fact that it is just ignorance. It is a company that doesn’t know us and has no idea what our set-up is here where we only open on request for specialist tours. They probably thought it was the same as cancelling a café lunch or a visit to a public garden.
I am also relieved. I hadn’t been enjoying the lead-up and feeling the pressure to showcase our garden at its best and I had been thinking that I may decline all future bookings for summer tours. That decided it; I WILL be declining all summer tours in the future. We are not that desperate. We only accept these tour bookings because we think they might have some interesting people on them and the actual visit is enjoyable as we take them around the garden and then host them over morning or afternoon tea. Despite the pressures of preparation, the visits are leisured, pleasant and affirming for us – a good experience for all parties.
So here we are. The pressure is off. The sun is shining. The pool is warming up nicely and I can spend time floating on my lilo and dipping in the water. The Aurelian lilies are indeed at their peak and the first auratum lilies are opening. The garden is looking lovely as we head into peak summer. And I am now doing the garden tasks that I want, rather than those I felt I had to.
It may be that the tour company, who shall remain unnamed, will learn in time that the holy grail of garden tours is personalised experiences and getting into gardens that are not normally open to casual garden visitors. Australian designer, writer and tour leader, Michael McCoy knows this. “This morning we’re heading to Dan Pearson’s own garden Hillside for a wander with Dan himself, who will talk us through how his own garden fuels and inspires his design work. What a treat!”
UK-based garden tour specialists, Brightwater Holidays, know this. “After breakfast today we visit the private garden of Clos du Peyronnet, Our access to this private garden is a Brightwater exclusive, and a real highlight of our tour.” This is from their tour of gardens of the French Riviera that we were hoping to join in May before circumstances conspired against that plan.
Some of our own special memories are of gardens we gained access to that do not open to the public – a private commission of Dan Pearson’s in the Cotswolds , Mount St John in Yorkshire (owned by a grocery magnate, I believe) where leading designer Tom Stuart-Smith has created a sublime terrace with a borrowed vista into seeming eternity, being hosted to morning coffee by the owner of Bury Court near Farnham when the gate was very firmly closed to general garden visitors, being accorded the privilege of wandering alone at our own, slow pace through Ninfa in Italy, a champagne and canape reception for our group only, hosted by the Principe and Principessa Borromeo on Isola Bella – these experiences are on a different level to following the tried and true garden destinations that anybody and everybody can get into.
While twenty-five Canadians have missed their only chance of ever getting to see our garden, I feel I have taken it back. You will find me out digging mondo grass. I am thinking my way into an article on ‘when good plants go feral’.
Abbie
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 
An article on “When good plants go feral” might be a HUGE time-consumer! Especially when climatic conditions also undergo “changes.”
But I will, as always look forward to it.
Well, yes. Not just mondo grass, verbascums, Verbena bonariensis, tigridias – so many plants that refuse to stay in their allotted spaces.
How infuriating! We,too, have enjoyed visits to gardens not normally open to the public. It is a huge privilege, not to be abused and always memorable. Hopefully some people on the tour will have done their homework and were looking forward to visiting you and will give the company hell for depriving them of the highlight of the tour.
Ha! That was my unspoken hope but we will never know!
I agree. A very cavalier attitude & no reason given?
Just: Unfortunately we find with our itinerary, that we are now unable to come to your garden.
My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.
That would be an itinerary drawn up, checked for timings and approved by all parties a good 3 months ago or more. Probably more.
Thankyou for your reply Abbie. It seems to me that their excuse is a computerised one & not really sincere, so I say 😤 politely , 😁
I thought I might have heard more the following week but clearly that is not going to happen.
this is where companies should have to pay a considerable non refundable deposit.
I would be angry too.
The thing is that unless you open your garden all the time and tours are part of the bread and butter of the operation, you don’t actually make any money out of tours. In fact they don’t even cover costs if you include labour. So it needs to be enjoyable for the hosts as well as the visitors. It is the discourtesy, the lack of respect that upset me.
We only ever opened for visitors on the very rare occasion and entually decided that even that was too much of a bother as we always wished the garden to be at its best when visitors came and put a lot of effort into preparation. It really is a stressful and unenjoyable way to garden and doing so purely for our own enjoyment is far nicer. I would be fuming if somebody cancelled a visit after I had put in all the work which is odd in a way as I would not look forward nor welcome the visit anyway. One result that opening to the public has brought to me is a huge intolerance of those people who open on an almost professional basis but fail to present a garden in a reasonable state for visitors – hoses and wheelbarrow left lying about are a particular bugbear as, as might be imagined, weeds and lack of general care and maintenance. High admission prices to gardens where the owner has an overinflated opinion of their work – small gardens of 20/30 minutes charging the same and even more than large estate gardens with acres to wander. I could go on and on venting my vexation at low standards, inflated egos and high prices! Re your present decision – the garden is now yours, completely yours, and all for your enjoyment. Have a great time!
I see we are on the same page on this! I had worked out an approach that made it work for us -specialist tours from overseas (the International Dendrology Society this spring) or special events like the national rhododendron conference this year. And a visit of at least 2 hours duration with a guided tour and refreshments because sharing food and drink changes the whole dynamic. That made it pleasurable for us as well and brought us the interesting people while filtering out the tyre kickers and people just looking for something to do with no real interest in plants, gardens or what we are doing here. It is still a lot of work but sharing the garden felt rewarding. But it doesn’t take much to make me feel that it is just not worth my time and energy! There are 2 possible spring tours we may book this year but that will likely be the end. Certainly no more summer tours and nothing more from that company!
Very annoying – these companies seem to have no manners at all.
We open our garden (in Zurich, Switzerland) 2 to 3 times a year to friends and acquaintances, sending out about 150 invitations. That’s a great occasion to see a lot of people we would otherwise not have the time to invite. Only a minority of them have a garden of their own or any specific gardening interest, but they all enjoy a day – or a few hours – out in a beautiful and peaceful garden while seeing old friends. We also have two public garden opens, one being the National Garden Day, when private owners all over Switzerland open their gardens to the public, the other is basically the same, but restricted to our parish (city district). These visitors are in most cases well-behaved, their knowledge and interest varying. Many are looking for inspiration and ideas for their own gardens. We do accept groups, mainly from garden societies. They so far have never been a disappointment. Last year, the English garden book author, designer and curator of the Karl Foerster Garden and Museum, Heidi Howcraft, visited us with a small group, among them two curators of historic gardens around Berlin. That was highly rewarding. We’ll open our garden as long as we draw pleasure and gratification from it. We are not dependent on making money from it, gardening being our hobby and passion. But it’s quite different when you have to keep a business going as you have, Abbie, so I think it’s the right decision. With or without visitors, having a beautiful garden is one of the great luxuries of our time.
You seem to have things well organized, Herbert. We used to open for about seven months of the year and I have no desire to ever go back there. But these days we describe ourselves as retired and are in a position to be very choosy about whether we open or not. And, as it is not about money, we want it to be interesting and enjoyable for us as hosts as well as making sure it meets the visitors’ expectations.
I see your point, perhaps they didn’t quite understand the difference between stopping in at a public garden vs arranging a visit to a private garden, but I would think anyone with some sense could have figured it out, particularly if they’re trying to run a business which relies on it. I’m sorry to hear they’ve wasted your time like this and believe they will find it difficult to develop a collection of top-notch gardens as this becomes their reputation.
Thanks for continuing to share online, I always enjoy hearing your thoughts and seeing your work.
I am sure they didn’t realise the difference (and probably still don’t) but I have washed my hands of them. Thanks for your kind comments.
Goodness! That is insulting! Our gardens have never been a component of a Garden Tour because they are not home gardens. (Garden Tours here are limited to home gardens.) That sort of makes it easier. When they were open to the public, they were open independently of any other event. I mean, they were the only component of the event.
Great post Abbie. You are too generous to the tour company by not naming them. This is appalling treatment and at the very least they should have paid your fee in full. To allow them to get away with this rudeness without penalty means that they will do this again with some other garden. Think of the rest of us and next time require better terms for yourself.
Charles! Hello! We don’t get many overseas tours these days. We used to see many more from the US, UK, Australia and other places and more specialist groups on the move but they seem to have reduced greatly in numbers over the past decade or two. And it is such a small garden scene here that other parties will work out who the company is! The tour company practice that used to annoy the hell out of me was booking in a certain number but when people decided to stay in the hotel or have a day on their own, altering the voucher for the number that actually visited. The people who didn’t come on the day have already paid as part of their tour fee but the companies just used to pocket that for themselves. That is a practice I would clamp down on these days. But, when we so rarely open now, it is not about the money. We don’t even break even on tours. It was about the insulting lack of respect on this occasion as well as the inconvenience. No amount of money is going to change that,
As a Jury (Maiden name) visiting Taranaki on Wellington anniversary weekend I made my husband tiki tour out to Tikorangi specially to drive past your garden. I’m obsessed with gardening so wanted to see if we could spot anything special from the road. Even though we only drove past slowly, it still looked very special!