Gardens

"The gardens are charming and utterly delightful. "

The gardens are open from the 21st March to 28th September, Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm. Adults £3.00, RHS members free, children free. We are participants in the BBC GW magazine '2-for-1' offer on production of a valid voucher.

The gardens extend to 1.5 acres, wrapped around the cottage (our home) and extending up to the canal towpath. There are seven distinct areas, each interconnected with gravel or grass paths. Here’s a quick tour….

• Close to the house is the sundial garden. Interlinked with clematis covered arches and narrow gravel paths, this area is a popular spot to vanish into – children especially love its hide-and-seek nature. Look out for Nectaroscordum siculum.

• Next is the cottage vegetable garden, edged with wooden sleepers and clipped box hedging. We grow a wide range of cottage garden fruit and vegetables packed in tight to produce as much as possible from a small space. All produce is grown organically .

• Turn right into the grass avenue, flanked on each side by a display of hardy grasses, from a few inches high to 7ft and more.

• The grass avenue leads to the orchard, a collection of productive apple, pear and cherry trees set neatly into the lawn and underplanted with ground cover perennials. Stroll through the trees to the seat at the top – look out for canal boats passing by at eye level through the hedge.

• Turn right again into the top lawn to the brand new Cheshire Year of the Garden beds. These have been created from a former plain lawned area and were planted in spring 2008 with hardy perennials, grasses and tulips to form a tapestry of colour throughout the summer.

• Walk between the yew hedges into the pond garden. This is the most popular part of the garden with a large pond rich with aquatic plants and marginals and an extensive alpine scree garden. It’s a lovely spot to sit and watch dragonflies and birds enjoying the water. The pond is host to frogs and newts and a pair of ducks who regularly visit.

• Finally, step down into the old cottage garden. Wrapped around the east and north of the cottage is a prettily planted area which is especially lovely in spring. A small wildlife pond offers a safe refuge for frogs. The circular garden with its low wall shows off a handsome collection of pulmonarias and hellebores.

"Full of lovely flowers of yesteryear, bringing back many memories. A plantsman's dream."