6th March 2009
16 weeks, 3 days, 12 hours, 58 minutes and counting until I open my garden up for the National Gardens Scheme for the first time. Not that I'm nervous. Well, not as jittery as I was when I approached the NGS last summer to see whether my garden was worthy enough to join the 3,600 or so other gardens in the eminent Yellow Book. I called Penny Snell (former London organiser, who has since risen to the lofty heights of chairman of the NGS), who who said she would send round a local county organiser to check out the tiny garden that sits behind my Victorian terrace house in Walthamstow, East London.
This is when I started to feel a little apprehensive. Friends had warned me that county organisers have all of the subtlety of Hinge and Bracket and that I should expect some no nonsense, acid-tongued comments about my garden. Friday night, the telephone rang and the organiser said she could come round early on Sunday morning. I agreed to her request - I wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible.
9am Sunday morning and the door bell chimed. Outside the front door were Teresa and Stuart Farnham, assistant county organisers for East London. They were smiling, they were friendly and they in no way resembled Hinge and Bracket. I'm relieved and show them around my Lilliputian plot hoping that they wouldn't think it's too small or that it's just not interesting enough to open. After taking copious notes, pictures and asking me questions, they left to peruse another potential NGS garden.
The next few weeks dragged by slowly as I waited for an answer. Then Penny Snell called to put me out of my misery - the garden had been accepted. I was delighted and relieved to be ‘in'. Rejection for someone who writes about gardening for a living would have been mortifying, a bit like a garden writer being sent a warning letter from the council to say they'd be evicted from their local allotment if they didn't start to look after the plot properly (actually, that was me).
Although I had been given verbal confirmation, written verification arrived with the launch of The Yellow Book 2009. There was my garden, 24 Brunswick Street, in the directory with the words NEW stamped next to it. Looking out of my window now I can see there's a lot of work to be done to get it ready. Still I've got plenty of time. 16 weeks, 3 days and 28 minutes, to be precise. And I'm not nervous. Honestly!
Martyn Cox is a garden writer, columnist and author. His latest book, RHS Wildlife Garden, has just been published