Author: DeniseW

Contact us now to advertise in the Open Gardens programme and website.

For only £100, we are offering a half-page advert in our programme plus inclusion of your advert on the sponsors’ page of our website. Contact us now and secure your space: info@opengardens.org.

Our aim is to use sponsorship to cover our costs, such as printing and insurance, so that the money we make from programme sales, teas and plant sales can go directly to our chosen charities. This year, our charities will be The Trussell Trust, Histon & Impington Green Spaces, Crafts Hill District Explorers and Histon & Impington Feast.

We are happy to announce that Open Gardens 2024 is going ahead!

With huge thanks to all of the gardeners who have so generously agreed to open their gardens this year, especially those who stepped in at the last minute to save us from having to cancel. Special thanks also to our friends at HIHub for their help spreading the word.

Save the date! Sunday 16th June. And bookmark the website/follow us on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date, and please do help us to spread the word. We’ll soon be announcing the charities that we’ll be supporting this year. In the meantime, we would love to hear from you if you’re interested in performing music in one of our gardens or could help design the front cover of our programme.

Contact: info@opengardens.org

If you are an artist or designer (professional, student or amateur enthusiast) and you can spare some time this month to design the front cover of the Open Gardens programme, we would love to hear from you!

As the small selection in the photo illustrates, we have had some wonderful and varied designs over the years, and many of us like to keep the programme as a memento of the occasion. The design could be a painting, photography-based or graphic design, or any other idea that you have. If you are interested in helping, and have some spare time in the next month, please get in touch as soon as possible.

info@opengardens.org

Without more gardens, we will unfortunately have to cancel HI Open Gardens on 16th June 2024. If you could open your garden, please get in touch as soon as possible.

Open Gardens is a community event, raising money for charities. Last time, we had 17 gardens open, of all shapes and sizes, and raised £11,000, which was split between HI Feast, HI Friends, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices and Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital. With so many charities struggling at the moment, we would love to make 2024 just as successful.

Your garden certainly doesn’t need to be immaculate or straight out of the glossy magazines (although we love those, too!). Perhaps you have a passion for growing vegetables or for making the best home possible for wildlife, or maybe an interesting collection or hobby. It also doesn’t matter if your garden is tiny – they are often the most inspiring, giving visitors ideas for their own tiny gardens or awkward spaces, and you can always ask visitors to wait if the garden starts to get too busy.

Welcoming the community into your garden is hugely rewarding, and once you’ve done it once you’re very likely to want to do it again! You can expect hundreds of visitors of all ages, with appreciative comments and enthusiasm, who will help you to see your garden through new eyes! Perhaps you have a big enough space to host live music in your garden, or you have an idea for another activity? Or perhaps you have a favourite charity (local, national or international) to suggest for us to support this year. If you’re interested, have a look at the rest of the website to find out more and contact us as soon as possible (16th December at the latest) info@opengardens.org.

Could your garden be part of Open Gardens 2024? Contact us now.

Open Gardens will be back on Sunday 16th June 2024, but we can’t do it without the generous help of village gardeners. Could your garden be part of it? As any visitor to previous events will tell you, it doesn’t matter how big or small your garden is, and it certainly doesn’t need to be immaculate. Visitors love to see a wide range of garden sizes and styles, to get inspiration for their own gardens and to see work in progress (and maybe to come back in a few years time and see how it’s grown!). You can expect plenty of support from us, including risk assessment, liability insurance, an owners’ tea party to help you to prepare. And, on the day, you can expect hundreds of visitors, perhaps live music in your garden, and the huge satisfaction of being part of this fabulous community event, seeing villagers of all generations enjoying your garden.

We would also love to hear from you if you are interested in joining the organising committee. We are a small, friendly committee and we meet approximately monthly in the run-up to each event, which happens every other year.

If you think you might be interested, please contact us now info@opengardens.org to find out more.

Two changes from the previously advertised (in green)

We will be selling plants on the Green on Saturday 11th, 9-11am (during programme sales) and for the duration of the event on Sunday 12th (while stocks last). So make sure you pop by for a bargain or ten!

If you have been growing plants to donate to our plant stall, please bring them along to the Green, if you can, either on Saturday morning or Sunday (preferably early. If you need us to take them off your hands before then or can’t get to the Green, please let us know.

We have plenty to keep your little ones busy during this year’s Open Gardens, this Sunday, 12th June, giving you the chance to sneak a quick look at the gardens 😊

You can pick up your free Children’s Trail on the Green or at your first garden. Each garden has an object for you to find (cute animals, mythical creatures, the crazy laughing tree) and a stamp with which to stamp your “passport”. On the back, you’ll also find some more ideas for things to do.

At Garden 3, you could play hide and seek in the woods, or see if you can find the buildings where the animals used to be housed, back in the days when there was a private zoo. You can even meet the Cambridge Cats, Fitz and Will! Find them at the top of the drive at 2pm, 3pm and 4pm.

At Garden 9, you can find out all about hedgehogs, and how you can help to provide a good home for them in your garden, or pick up some inspiration for growing your own veg. Bring a blindfold and have a go at the barefoot maze at Garden 10 or look for the bat boxes and newts at Garden 6. You can play chess or visit the beach in Garden 1, admire the clever sunken trampoline in Garden 2 or plant some wild flowers in Garden 12. You’ll come across chickens, pigs and no doubt cats and dogs on your travels, with plenty of wild areas to explore and inspiration for making your own wildlife garden. Plus, historical information in several gardens and a wide range of music performances to experience. All in all, a fun-packed day for all the family!

We have four gardens offering refreshments, nicely spread across the villages, so when those little legs start to get tired you won’t be far from somewhere to take a pit stop. They are marked on the map, along with locations of toilets and gardens offering play equipment, so you can plan your day to suit your family’s needs. You can also download the brand new Open Gardens App, to keep all of this information at your fingertips.

You’ll also be supporting local children. One of our four chosen charities this year is East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, and the money we raise for HI Friends will help to support their new projects supporting the mental health of the children and young people in our village schools.

Entry to the gardens is free for under 16s accompanied by an adult. Adult entry is by programme, £5 in advance or £6 on the day. See www.opengardens.org for details of where to buy.

As promised, here is the live music programme in full. Please see the Open Gardens programme for garden addresses. For a printable version, please see the foot of the page.

You can also find the music listings on the all-new Open Gardens App! See your copy of the programme for information on how to access it.

Garden 3: Choir 2000/Cambridge Sinfonietta
Choir 2000 formed as a choir for the Millennium, endeavouring to promote public education and appreciation of the arts and science of music in all its aspects. 2.30 to 3.10pm.
Cambridge Sinfonietta is a friendly amateur orchestra based in Cambridge. We mainly play works drawn from the classical repertoire. 3.30 to 4.10pm.
 
Garden 5: Histon Brass
We are an enthusiastic group of brass players with local connections! We play a wide variety of music ranging from baroque through classical to traditional marches and contemporary music. 2.30 to 3.15pm and 3.45 to 4.30pm.
 
Garden 6: Gentle Jazz
Anita Wilson + guitarist. 1.30 to 2.30pm and 3 to 4pm.
 
Garden 7: Clare House Clarinets
Sara Morrison, Trish Gallagher, Steph Baughen, Katie Sylvester and Karen Hills. They play classical, ragtime, jazz/swing and folk music. 1pm and 3pm, 30-minute slots with 10-minute breaks.
 
Garden 10: The Impingtones
Friendly not-for-profit community choir in Histon and Impington since 2016. 2 to 2.30pm and 3 to 3.30pm.
 
Garden 12: Classical piano/Cambridge Ten Sing
Ten Sing are an informal YMCA-based performing arts group for young people aged 11-18. 2pm Classical piano (either in garden or church); 3pm Ten Sing in Garden.
 
Garden 13: Mythopoeic
Katherine Galvin and Jay Monk, young folk singer songwriter multi-instrumentalists. They play mainly their own songs with some music from the tradition and “folked up” interpretations of more contemporary material. 2 pm and 4 pm with breaks.
 
Garden 14: B1049s
Three-piece band playing acoustic covers from a wide variety of genres. 2.30 pm – 3pm and 3.30 – 4pm.

NB all Timings are approximate and at the discretion of musicians. Some performances may not be able to take place if weather is bad.

You can buy your programme now from Topiary Tree, Station Stores, Saint Andrews Centre, Histon Post Office, and Gin House Flowers (cash only). Or from our stall on Histon Green, Saturdays 28th May, 4th and 11th June, 9 – 11 am (contactless and card payment accepted).

On the day, you can buy them from the information hub on the green (contactless and cards accepted) or from any participating garden (cash only).

Programmes cost £5 in advance/£6 on the day. Accompanied under 16s are free. All proceeds, from programme sales, teas and plant sales, will be shared by our four charities, HI Friends, Histon & Impington Feast, East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices and Shepreth Hedgehog Hospital.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday 12th June!