We've just got back from Barnsdale Gardens. We usually try to do two or three garden visits during the summer and as this one is only just over an hour from us it seemed a good bet especially as I loved Geoff Hamilton's Cottage Garden series.
What a disappointment! I know late August is not the time to see gardens at their best but most places take this into account and plan their planting to give plenty of colour and interest during high summer.
The plants all looked half dead with drought and the whole place was shabby and unkempt. You'd expect to see some staff out on the borders weeding or dead heading but we didn't see a single gardener the whole time we were there.
The small 'themed' gardens mostly contained the same plants - some of them decidedly out of place and apart from the Japanese Garden there was nothing of real interest.
Not a patch on The Old Vicarage at East Ruston.
Shame.
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic