With this in mind Jemma Walton found out more about some of the private gardens which will be open to the public to raise cash for charity this summer.

An oasis of calm close to the cityEVERY night, at 11pm, Dr Robert Steddings heads out into his back garden for an hour armed with a torch. He is on slug patrol – a necessary thing if you have a garden as beautiful as his.

"Slugs eat everything," he laughed. "You have to be very careful. Having a pair of woodpeckers and their two babies in your garden is one thing, but slugs and snails are quite another."

Robert and Sheila Steddings are opening their garden to the public on Sunday – and what a garden.

You can hear the traffic tearing along the ever-busy Thorpe Road from their back garden, and yet with its 120-year-old Bramley apple tree and a luxuriant banana tree growing in their conservatory, it seems more of a wildlife haven than an inner-city yard.

"We bought the house four years ago, and it was derelict," said Sheila. "It took three men two days to clear the scrub and make it ready to be planted, and then I broke my hip," added Robert. "And so I sat in the conservatory looking at the garden, planning it out."

Their plans have been executed to perfection, and although their garden is relatively small at 23 metres by 11 metres, it is perfectly formed.
The couple have taken pains to make it different from every angle, and so as you walk around it appears to change – from one aspect it's a vegetable garden, from another it's wild and dotted with rare plants, from another it's a pretty flower-filled traditional English garden.

"The garden is there for our relaxation and enjoyment," said Robert. "But we are wildlife ecologists, and we are carrying out a number of experiments here as well."

One of those experiments involves Leylandii hedges. These apparently cause huge amounts of strife because they grow so big they cause untold barneys between neighbours, and there have been moves to ban them completely.

With this in mind, the Steddings are growing a hedge made up of holly, ewe and box, which will make just as good a hedge, but won't grow so wildly, which could ease neighbourly disputes across the country.

Next to the experimental hedges lies a fruit and veg patch including spinach, shallots, raspberries, cabbages and runner beans, and the aged bramley tree, which is the only feature of the garden that remains from when the Steddings moved in.

Next to that lies a "bog garden", covered in net to stop blackbirds nicking its moss to line their nests with. Robert is proud of his pinguicula, which is a plant with a tiny blue flower that munches insects. Insects stick to its leaves and then the leaves roll around it and enjoy their dinner.

Other highlights include a gorgeous pond, and numerous flowers the couple have rescued during the course of their work advising Government agencies and councils on the impact developments will have on the natural world.

This includes a spotted orchid, which they
discovered on top of a cliff face which was due to be blown up and turned into a rubbish tip by Doncaster Council.

"It's illegal to take flowers from the wild," said Robert. "But we get permission and saved something that would have otherwise been destroyed."

The couple are currently working on a development in Poland tied up to budget airlines, and they have been a target for environmental campaigners in the past, as they worked on the controversial Newbury Bypass, and Manchester Airport's expansion.

"We were on a list of people to be bombed," said Sheila. "And we got sent a package and were very nervous about opening it. But we did – and it was a jar of honey."

The Steddings are fascinating people and their garden is every bit as fascinating as them. If you're stressed or a little bit low, taking time to stroll down Thorpe Road, have a look round and listen to the wood pigeons coo in the Steddings' back garden, will make the world of difference.

Clearview, at Cross Lane, Wisbech St Mary, is open on Sunday, June 29, between 10am and 5pm. Visitors are also welcome by appointment. Admission is £3. For more information, call 01945 410724 or e-mail magsrick@hotmail.com, find Cross Lane, Wisbech St Mary on Google Maps.
-------------------

Old rubbish . . . but this garden is great
POP by Angie Jones' garden, and you'll find a couple of unusual visitors, including a large insect with lightbulbs for eyes, a hubcap for a chest and a shower fitting for a nose.

So it's no ordinary garden, with no ordinary insects (which are really insect sculptures) perched inside it.

Willow Holt is a former rubbish tip and two acres of overgrown wasteland which has slowly but surely been turned into a one-of-a-kind garden.

"We wanted a challenge," said Angie. "And that's what we got. When we first moved to Willow Holt in 1992, people would say to us, 'Oh, that's so-and-so's carpet', or 'I remember dumping my fridge in there.'

"And it was still being used as a rubbish tip. We had to kindly ask people to stop using our garden as a dump."

Angie and her husband-cum-sculptor Jonathan never expect to finish work on the garden, and never really want to as it gives them constant challenges and surprises.

"You never know what you're going to find," she said.

The pair, who live in the house that came with the land, unearthed a batch of hand-made bricks, which they used to build a summerhouse with, and which Angie said was her most precious discovery.

"Some people go out to dig the garden. But we go and brick or rubble-mine ours," she said.

The Joneses soon realised they had to work with, rather than against, the rubbish, and have made "artworks" out of some of the odds and ends they've truffled up among the weeds.

Angie said: "Children love our sculptures. I don't think they've ever seen anything quite like it. If you want nice neat edges and bedding plants I wouldn't recommend coming here.

"We've got water voles, great crested newts and wildflowers. It's a slice of the wild."

Willow Holt, Thorney will be open on June 29, July 27, August 31, September 28 and October 26 between 11am and 5pm. Admission costs £2.50, children go free. More information is available by calling 01733 222367. Find Willow Holt, Thorney on Google Maps.
-----------------------------------

Margaret's provided a haven for wildlife
Margaret Rickard was the first mounted policewoman in the Met, and her love of wildlife is plain to anyone walking around her garden.

Because it is a haven for animals, birds and insects, including hundreds of honey bees, butterflies, a Sparrowhawk, huge dragonflies, turtle doves, and rats (which, one summer noshed their way through a 10kg sack of freshly-picked walnuts).

Margaret and her husband, Graham, pride themselves on their very varied garden, which offers visitors the chance to see everything from Israeli carp enjoying a feeding frenzy in the massive lake, through to smelling the pink and luscious roses.

But the road to creating such beauty was a long and rocky one.
When Graham retired from his job as an inspector with the Met, they decided to relocate to Clearview, off Cross Lane, in Wisbech St Mary.

When they bought the house and the accompanying one-and-a-third acres it was a lot different from what it is today, and they had to haul plenty of bricks out of the earth and completely replant it.

Today it's quite a spectacle. "We've got a little bit of everything," said Margaret. "We've got an allotment with peppers, carrots, spinach, everything, growing in it, a lake, an orchard, a field, and a cottage garden.

"We have been named the Wisbech in Bloom wildlife garden for the last four years, and I'd like to win it again as I'm a great wildlife fan."
In fact, she loves wildlife so much that she gets quite tearful when talking about the humble bee.

"We couldn't live without bees," she said. "Eighty per cent of agriculture is pollinated by bees, without them there would be no fruit or veg. But since 1992 they have suffered from disease and are dying off."

Margaret has three bee hives, and you don't take more than two steps without seeing at least four bees feasting on one of the garden's flowers. "As long as you don't disturb them they won't disturb you," she said. "They are too busy with the flowers to want to sting anyone."

91 Thorpe Road, Peterborough will be open on Sunday, June 22, between 10am and 4pm, admission costs £2.50, children go free. Find 91 Thorpe Road, Peterborough on Google Maps.