A CAERPHILLY borough man has been left frustrated and disappointed after being told  he is no longer allowed to open his garden as part of a charity scheme.

Graeme Moore from Argoed has been a gardener for 49 years and worked on various National Trust sites across the UK. He has transformed his own garden and opened it under the National Garden Scheme since 2019 to help raise money for charity.

The National Garden Scheme sees people across the UK open their own gardens to visitors, with ticket sales going to the charity.

In 2019, he raised £1,015 for the scheme’s charities from the entry fee, people paying for teas and homemade cakes and buying plants. Mr Moore was unable to open in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions and this year he raised £260.

“It was lovely weather-wise in 2019 but this year was quite wet, but people still came and enjoyed the garden and the tea and cake," he said.

“But now I’ve been told that they don’t want me to open for them next year. When they said this, they told me that the garden was not big enough to interest visitors for 45 minutes and that there is not enough in the area to occupy visitors for an afternoon.

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“But if this is the case, why would they say that we were fine to open in the first place? The garden is not huge but it is stated in the booklet as a ‘miniature gem’ and ‘This lovely little garden in the village high street, crowded with flowering plants, has an Italianate air with little gravel terrace and a sunken garden below. Inspiration for anyone with a really small plot… etc.’

“Anyone reading these descriptions would be expecting a small garden. The garden is 320 square metres.”

Mr Moore first spoke with the scheme in August 2017 when he was originally opening the garden with another garden nearby, with one ticket allowing entry into both. However, a year later, he was told that the second garden had withdrawn and asked him to continue and open on his own.

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In a letter from Cathy Davies, county organiser for Gwent for the National Garden Scheme on September 5, Mr Moore was told visitors who were left unsatisfied by visits to gardens taking part in the project may be left with a negative view of the initiative as a whole.

“It is a question of visitors’ expectations," she said. "They travel often a considerable distance, expecting a whole afternoon out, centred on a garden that takes at least three quarters of an hour to look round.

"If those expectations aren’t met, that can affect their attitude not just to that visit, but to the whole scheme. So, we have to stick to our yardstick.

"I am sure when you consider it from the visitors’ viewpoint, you can understand.”

Mr Moore said: “It is a small garden, but I think it would take a while to explore the layout and to examine the plants and having done that I suppose that visitors might like to sit a while – there are seats in each part of the garden – and that they might be tempted to stay for tea on the patio and shop for plants on the way out.

“I have taken a great deal of care over the layout of the garden, and I know from the feedback received that visitors do find that it seems much larger than it actually is. 

“We spoke to all visitors to the garden on both years and nobody said they had any issues with the garden.

“In her emails, she even said we had satisfied her expectations, however, she has never visited the garden on an open day and her assistant didn’t come this year either. She complains about visitors not enjoying it, but has never referred to any complaints she has received.”

Ms Davies, who also opens her garden in Usk under the scheme said: “We started getting complaints from people who had travelled miles for a garden which took 10 minutes to go around. The scheme has a yardstick of having 45 minutes at least in the gardens and to spend an afternoon out.

“People were disappointed. I went to see him to explain and he was disappointed. I said that we have either got to stop or he can join with other gardens to open.

“He has a lovely garden, but it has received complaints.”

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Mr Moore said: “If the NGS has received any actual complaints about the garden I would like to know about them. If there have been complaints, I would hope that I would be given the opportunity to do something about them.

“But in the meantime, I would hope that the decision to drop our garden from the scheme might be reversed and that my wife and I might be allowed to register the garden for opening in August 2022.

“There are a number of other gardens which are about the same size as ours which are opening under the scheme, so why is ours not allowed to?”

The National Garden Scheme in Gwent raised £44,802 this year for nursing and health charities.