Each summer me and my gardening chum Sylvia like to visit Winterton Open Gardens. An annual event held over a weekend in July, where the residents of the village open their gardens to the public in aid of local charities.

This is simply a scaled down version of the famous National Gardens Scheme, a charity which arranges the opening of private gardens of quality and interest to the public, with all proceeds going to a charity of the gardener’s choice.

They have volunteers up and down the country to vet the potential gardens, who are renowned for their keen eye and attention to detail, thus ensuring a consistently high standard for the paying public. If your garden is good enough to pass this rigorous test it will appear in the charities ‘Yellow Book’ along with its location and details of your open day(s).

After our trip to Winterton I always come home enthused by what I’ve seen and eager to get stuck in to some gardening job or other. One year I even had the fanciful notion of entering our garden for the National Garden Scheme itself.

However, that didn’t last long I’m afraid. A few trips on the internet soon put paid to that idea. Who am I trying to kid? You should see some of the beautiful gardens that are featured in the famous yellow book. They look like they’ve just hopped off a chocolate box. Manicured to within an inch of their lives and not a weed in sight.

These people obviously have lots of time, money and energy to lavish on their garden, and it obviously pays of if the pictures are anything to go by. I think I’ll have to put this idea on hold until I get my second wind!