The Hidden Gardens
Event Code: 9002
Location: Frome
Price: £5.00
Description: Hidden Gardens £5 per person to cover over 30 gardens over 3 days from, 9-11th July inclusive. 10.30-5.00p.m.
“Gardens and flowers have a way of bringing people together, dragging them from their homes.”
Clare Ansberry.
John Payne, Hidden Gardens poems
- The Glory of the Garden
It all begins in January –
snowdrops and winter aconites
peeping shyly through the snow,
then pale primroses and violets,
vibrant daffodils and gaudy tulips.
As spring fades slowly into summer
there’s roses, clematis, marigolds,
love-in-the-mist, sweet peas, rudbeckias –
a hundred scents and colours
to show the English summer’s here.
July comes round, Frome Festival time,
days when Bev and Tim, Alan, Gina, Dan,
Sharon, Hilary, Mick and Aliss, and
plucky plotters at Mendip View
heed the call of higher purpose
to show you the glory of their gardens.
- Bindweed
The bindweed grows silently, secretly
and must be kept at bay.
For with bindweed comes anarchy, wild anarchy,
cow parsley, which some call Queen Anne’s lace,
stately pink spikes of corn cockle,
a sea of ox-eye my Mum taught me
to call moon daisies. And cuckoo flowers
to mock the silent cuckoo.
This disorderly rabble have their place,
I’m sure, in nature, but not in my garden thank you!
I desire order, design and beauty
in our ever-changing gardens,
though you will see them on just one summer’s day,
scented, colourful, shady, secluded
sunny, secretive, compact and peaceful.
And we, the gardeners of Frome, will be there to greet you
Hidden Gardens, 20-Twenty-One.
Gardens, like people, all shapes and sizes.