Eleven Parwich households opened their gardens to visitors today, and thankfully the rain was kept at bay all the way through the afternoon – a rare stroke of luck, indeed!
This week’s Ashbourne News Telegraph – copies of which are still available – carried a full page colour preview of the event, with photos taken from previous years, and perhaps this helped to encourage what felt like a healthy turn-out of visitors.
This year’s delayed summer also meant that we were able to see these gardens at a somewhat earlier stage of development, with poppies, lupins, peonies and aquilegeas all providing unexpected splashes of colour.
Thanks are due to the Parwich & District Horticultural Society for organising the event, which also included cream teas and a plant stall at the Memorial Hall, as well as the childrens’ show of paintings and plants.
If any of our readers has photographs of the childrens’ show, we would be delighted to receive them. In the meantime, here are a selection of shots from this year’s gardens, all of which can be clicked to enlarge.
1. Pond Cottage
2. Cosheston
3. Flaxdale
4. Church Cottage
5. Church View (also right hand photo above)
6. Wash Meadow
7. Creamery Cottage
8. Parwich Hall
9. Wheatsheaf Cottage
10. Rookery House
11. Town Head
All photos by Kevin S.
PARWICH.ORG 
Well, what a splendid afternoon it’s been! Please pass on our thanks to all those involved in the Open Gardens Day today, we had a lovely time at Parwich. We enjoyed all the gardens and the cream tea (and a beer in the pub)! The art exhibitions were wonderful too. The sun shone to make it a perfect afternoon.
Many thanks,
Jackie Wild
Thanks to everyone involved in creating and organising such an enjoyable event.
One year we will get our holiday in Parwich when the open gardens are on, would love to see them. From a wet, windy Plymouth covered in sea mist.
A Parwich open gardens participant who was extremely concerned with one of her cherished roses suffering from a strange fungal infection that was proving resistant to normal fungicides was fortunate enough by pure chance to have a rose expert visit her garden , after a close inspection he exclaimed ‘I dont believe it’ ,’Do you recognise it?’,said the hopeful owner,’I most certainly do’ he replied ‘ it’s Victor Mildew’.
Parwich horticultural society recently enjoyed an excursion to Kew Gardens in London where as a special treat afforded to very few visitors they were allowed a close up inspection of the botanical worlds only known man eating plant. Standing at twenty metres high and originating from deep within the rainforests of Borneo it lures its prey with an exquisitely perfumed blossom ,once the victim is ensnared by huge tendrils and devoured the plant emits a tremendous burp before relaxing to await its next meal. The plant generated much enthusiasm amongst the members although sadly there were three empty seats for the return journey.
Drinkers sat outside Parwich legion were left stunned when a gentleman who was enjoying some refreshment after the open garden tour was swooped upon by a huge bird of prey that brazenly snatched his toupee from his head and flew off with it in its talons. Wild life experts believe the bird in question is most likely to be a Bald Eagle.
The horticultural world was left in shock this morning after news broke that Hans Van Dyke Hollands leading authority on tulip hybrid cultivation who had long been suffering from an extremely rare untreatable condition that caused his feet to swell up out of all proportion has sadly popped his clogs.
Parwich horticultural society recently enjoyed a trip of a lifetime when as guests of the Derbyshire Time travellers Club they were transported back in time to Hampton Court Palace where King Henry The Eighth was holding court . After a splendid banquet the King gave them a personally guided tour of the magnificent gardens and maze, but unbeknown to them Henry had taken a very strong fancy to a young lady in the group and adamantly refused to allow her to return with them. The unenviable task of informing her parents fell to the club secretary who told them ‘ try not to worry Mr & Mrs Boleyn King Henry will soon tire of Anne and then we will return and bring her home’.