TWO Worcestershire gardens, including the rolling acres of the Capability Brown-designed Croome Park and a rather more modest, but equally attractive private house plot in Worcester, are opening for the National Gardening Scheme.

Tomorrow, Roger and Barbara Parker will be opening their oneacre garden that sits quietly behind a 1930’s semi-detached house at 68, Windsor Avenue in the St John’s area of Worcester.

The garden is split into three areas and has four ponds in very different styles. There are flower beds, bog gardens, an ‘oriental’ area and a veg patch plus four greenhouses.

The garden will be open from 11am to 4pm. Admission is £3 (children free) and there will be refreshments available and plants for sale. However, there is limited parking nearby, so visitors are asked to park courteously around the area. Meanwhile, on a slightly larger scale, Croome Park covers 700 acres of landscaped park designed by Capability Brown in the mid-18th century, with restored shrubberies and flowering studs, ornamental lake and restored park land.

It is opening on Tuesday from 10am to 5.30pm. Admission is £6.50 for adults and £3.25 for children.

In the year the Queen celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, the National Gardens Scheme is celebrating 85 years of open gardens, raising millions of pounds for a variety of charities, including Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

There are 120 gardens throughout England and Wales that both opened in the first year (1927) and are open again this year.