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Date for 2011 is Sunday 19th June – click here for more details

Also today Parwich Open Gardens 2011 from 2-6pm – click here for more details

OPEN GARDEN AT CULLAND HALL, near Brailsford
Sunday 25th April 2010

The Plant Fair will be open from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm, tickets are £3.50 (children free) and there is ample free parking. Refreshments will be served all day. In addition to plants for sale there will also be French and Shabby Chic garden furniture and a variety of quality gardening goods.

This is the fifth annual Open Garden and Spring Plant Fair and it is in aid of local charity ‘The Mid-Derbyshire Association for Mobile Physiotherapy’, which has been providing home based physiotherapy for over 25 years to housebound, and often isolated people, living in the Derbyshire Dales area.  There will be unusual plants for sale from leading specialist nurseries and RHS exhibitors.

Culland Hall garden is featured in this month’s edition of Derbyshire Life, using some of Debbie W’s photos.

Culland Hall is based in an idyllic position on parkland which was laid out in the 18th century; although there has been a house at Culland since the 12th Century. There are 5 acres of garden as well as a lake. The owners, Simon and Lucy Thompson are well acquainted with the house and gardens, as Simon’s father bought the estate in the 1930’s (where he built a new house on the old site.)

In 1995 Simon bought the family home and Lucy set about restoring the garden which, having been lovingly created by Simons mother, had largely disappeared. After two years of gardening largely with a chain saw, the blank canvas they had created needed a new plan.  Inspired by her childhood home in Kent close to the famous garden at Sissinghurst, and influenced by the work of Vita Sackville-West and Mark Anthony Walker, it was decided to divide the garden into various rooms to give it structure.  The rooms include a rose garden with many old varieties of shrub roses and a white garden. There are also a variety borders including colour themed, hot and peony.

The garden holds many surprises for visitors and the Thompson’s as well, according to Lucy. “Recently we decided to create a new border and realised we were simply reinstating one that had already once existed.  As we were digging away, we found old plant labels which were 100 years old, but which were perfectly legible.”  Lucy, along with gardening partner Kathryn Robey, is currently redeveloping, expanding and restoring the Victorian woodland walk and garden – which thus far has included planting over 3,000 ‘snakes head’ fritillaria.

In addition to the many plants on offer, visitors will enjoy seeing the Thompsons herd of Welsh Lleyn and Jacob sheep and Lucy’s large collection of rare breed hens.