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Revd Helen Writes.....

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  On Saturday and Sunday 7th and 8th June, eleven gardens in Headley will be open to visitors. Headley Open Gardens has returned and a wealth of flowers and trees, water features and vegetable patches, patios and ponds are open to all, with morning coffee available at the start of your walk round the village, then lunches are on offer at the Church Centre and in the afternoon a welcome cream tea is available in two of the open gardens. Some gardens are large; some have woodland attached; others are more compact but dazzle with colour; and all have distinctive features – hidden corners, unexpected surprises, secret sitting areas. I could go on but I hope a large number of people will come and see, and enjoy all the gardens. Of course we are expecting beautiful summer weather on those dates.

 

  We have all heard now that gardening is good for us with numerous benefits for us as well as for everything we come into contact with there. Not just plants, birds, animals, and insects who benefit from our care and attention but it has been found that gardening helps to reduce stress hormones and helps us to relax. This in itself is amazing, but there is even more to gardening than that. Being outside in the fresh air, absorbing vitamin D while doing something gently creative, distracts us from the stresses of everyday life.

 

  Lots of people come to visit the Open Gardens for all kinds of reasons and they all see things differently and spend different lengths of time with us. One year a couple of visitors walked silently and swiftly all round our garden and then left without speaking. Perhaps it wasn’t to their taste. But that same year, several hours after the garden had closed, I heard voices by our pond and discovered a group of people sitting in our peaceful wildlife area, enjoying the lovely evening.

 

  We love it when we get asked questions by our visitors and we are always relieved if we know the answers. There are places to sit and look around; places to sit and chat with your friends. One of my friends met someone in our garden whom she hadn’t seen for years. We garden owners may have worked hard to do our best to make it look its best but it is all worthwhile, especially when we remember that all the entrance fees all add more to the amount raised for the Rosemary Foundation and the Charities of the National Garden Scheme.

 

  There is nothing better, after a hard day’s work than sitting down in the garden with a party of friends. Some years ago one of my friends, sitting with a glass of wine in the dusk while our garden was at the height of its summer beauty, remarked regretfully that the nature of his job meant that he could never make a lovely garden as he has to move house every few years. I thought about this because, although in some ways a garden can take a lifetime to create, in another way it is new every year. It is perfectly possible to make a garden in a single year. TV makeover teams do it in a few days.

 

  It was only after that chance remark made by my friend, when I was thinking how much he was missing by not being a gardener, that I realised there is quite a lot of prayer tied up in my gardening. There is the thanksgiving for creation, thanksgiving for the glory and splendour of the colours and the perfection and the perfume of each plant. There is thanksgiving for the miracle of growth, of seeds to flowers and cuttings to plants. There is the sheer spine-tingling thrill and wonder of watching things grow. There is the sense of being at one with the growing things, being part of the cycle, a microcosm of the macrocosm. There is the sense of being part of a very long history.

 

  Best of all is the knowledge that gardens feature quite a lot in the Bible. Jesus went to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest. His tomb was in another garden and it was here Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his Resurrection when she thought he was the gardener. The book of Genesis tells us the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the evening breeze.

 

  My garden is for me a place of refreshment and peace where I can work quietly alongside the wonder of creation or sit in prayer at dawn or dusk while the air around is full of birdsong.

 

  Jesus chose to withdraw regularly, sometimes with his closest friends, into a natural setting to focus on his communion with God. In our gardens we can see the creative hand of God at work drawing us to places where we can recharge our batteries.

 

  Come and enjoy our gardens on 7th and 8th June. With love and prayers,

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Helen Kempster