OLL LEWIS: Open Season on Gardeners

Last weekend you may have noticed a few posts on the blog about something called ‘Open Gardens’, and if you don’t live in our little part of Devon you might be wondering what its all about. Well, make yourself a nice cup of tea, possibly augmented with a biscuit (I recommend the noble Hobnob for this purpose), and sit down for I am about to tell you.

Open Gardens is a fundraising event for the Woolsery Community Centre and Sports Hall, which is where we hold the Weird Weekend every year. The hall is, as attendees of the Weird Weekend will already know, a large state of the art building comparable in size to a modern leisure centre with tiered theatre seating in the main auditorium, several smaller rooms, a second large room (used for stalls and art exhibitions at WW) a kitchen and café area and a bar, all run on a mix of wind and solar power. The hall is a lot more important to the village than just being the venue of the Weird Weekend, it is used every day by at least one of the village clubs, be it for Tiny Tots (most attendees of which have in recent years been involved in the opening ceremony of the Weird Weekend and made some smashing UFOs to decorate the hall’s café at last year's event too), badminton, the Woolsery Society, dancing clubs or the occasional film nights. As you can imagine, in a large village far from the beaten track where bus services don’t run after 6pm, the hall, like the Farmer’s Arms pub, is very important.

Open Gardens itself is when a number of people from the village and around open up their gardens to the public for the weekend as part of a walking tour and people pay for a guidebook from the village hall. Each garden offers something different ranging from attractions you might expect like flowers, right through to the unusual like statues of meerkats engaging in cosplay, and endangered species.

When I’ve been touring people round the CFZ menagerie this year it’s been interesting to see which of our animals have been the most interesting to people, because where as Jon, Max and I might get wildly excited about some aquatic snail it doesn’t necessarily follow that anyone else would. The animal that generated the most interest was Vic, our Reeves pheasant, as he strutted around his large aviary showing off his yellow, black and white plumage. The interest in the Reeves pheasant was closely followed by the Triops cancriformis (it’s not every day you get to see three-eyed endangered species performing underwater acrobatics for you), the snapping turtle and our softshell turtle. Quite a few local people also showed an interest in the casts of large feline prints I had taken in January, with a few doubters walking away more convinced when I compared them to some casts of canine prints and to some casts of fake prints to show the differences.

On Monday it was the turn of people who had been showing people their gardens to see everyone else’s and I represented the CFZ in this. First in the tour was Town Farm where I peered into their stream, hoping to spot an invertebrate or two through the crystal clear water. After that it was on to the Snapes’ house where I met their son Kieran’s rabbit and saw some really well made Lego models that he had made, which made me nostalgic about my youth and the fact that, as I turn 30 in July, I will soon be officially an old gripper and able to use phrases like “The youth of today…”, “In my day…” and “Do you know how old I am, boy?!” without a hint of irony.

Next on the tour it was back to Myrtle Cottage where Hazel and a few other people from the village who have actually seen the big cat got to hold and examine the casts along with looking at the animals and the pheasant who was still busy showing off and seemed to be enjoying the attention.

One of the highlights of the rest of the tour was the garden of Robin and Gill Edmunds who, like us, are friends of Hartland Wildlife Trust. In the Edmundses’ garden there were lots of little animal statues including whimsical meerkats, dressed in various disguises, and a surprising ‘fossil.’ According to the attached sign it is a zenomorph (as seen in the Alien films). Now I’m not entirely convinced but it certainly made me smile as I walked around. Unfortunately I could not see every garden in the village as my back is a bit dodgy but those I did see were immaculately kept and every garden was different. If you are in North Devon when Open Gardens is on next then I really do recommend that you visit.