Susan Bennett is the Assistant County Organiser for the northwest London region of the
National Garden Scheme and she and her partner Earl Hyde are both creative artists working in ceramics. They open their garden in Muswell Hill three times a year.
They were discovered by Maureen Lipman, who lived locally at the time. She came to order a special pot from Susan and then saw their excitingly original garden. Following that they went on to join the National Garden Scheme, showing their garden every year and Susan has become the Assistant County Organiser for NW London. They have also appeared on TV in Alan Titchmarsh’s program about best back gardens (see link at side to Ham & High article about his visit to their garden).
Susan told us some of the background to the formation of the NGS, which apparently was started originally by a Liverpool businessman to raise money for community nurses after he employed a nurse to care for his sick wife. Nowadays the proceeds of the NGS Open Garden days go to a variety of charities, among them are Macmillan Nurses and Marie Curie, which I think came as a surprise to many of us. (see link at side to Origins of NGS)
Despite the amount of work involved in developing and maintaining their garden (and Earl makes all the cakes for their open days), Susan and Earl have obviously derived great enjoyment from their involvement in the NGS. Their knowledge and enthusiasm made this a really enjoyable afternoon and by popular demand a visit to see their garden (and to sample Earl's cakes) will be organised for later in the year!
Click on the links at the side to see Susan & Earl's NGS Site with lots of slides of their garden. Also see the link to the main NGS site for a list of all the 2016 Open Garden dates and locations.