Thanks for reading this far! And a special thank you for your donation. Please do leave a short message (or even a photo) in the Guest Book below. I've some key people to acknowledge, and of course there's my Recipe Book and Veg Plotting archive materials to follow.
Just like any real garden opening, this one couldn't have been opened on time without some valuable extra help. I didn't need assistance with tidying the garden, baking, taking money etc., but I still couldn't have done this without the following help from my fellow blogging buddies:
To EmmaT (Indyblogs, Baklava Shed Coalition and Emsworth Village Show) for reacting so positively when I first thought of the idea and I was wanting to make sure it wasn't just plain daft. She then provided lots of support and encouragement along the way.
To Victoria (Victoria's Backyard) for oodles of advice on what it's like to do a real garden opening, whilst in the throes of getting her own garden ready. If this virtual opening is anything like a real garden visit, then it's down to her. I do hope your garden opening goes well Victoria - and if anyone's near 28 Multon Road, SW18 on the 31st August between 2-6pm, then why not visit her garden (open under the NGS scheme) and see how its done for real?
To Zoe (Garden Hopping) for having the birdsong button on her blog's sidebar, just when I was struggling with the idea of having a birdsong sidetrack available on mine without having to resort to an external link. Not only did she have something that sounds just like the sounds of my garden, she wrote the code for it as well. Zoe also provided the Elderflower Champagne recipe.
To Karen (ArtistsGarden) and Denise (Mrs Nesbitt's Place), two very talented people who were inspired to make something as a donation for fundraising. To Anna, one of my regular commenters, who came up with the very thoughtful donation of a year's subscription to the Cottage Garden Society. Also, to Helen (Patient Gardener) for donating some seeds saved from her garden.
To Easygardener and Yolanda Elisabet (Bliss) for kindly providing the images used for the Glutney and Elderflower champagne recipes respectively.
To WaterAid (link opens in a new window), particularly Victoria Rouse for finding the idea inspiring and donating the WaterAid logo, plus the images and video clip to illustrate their work. See you in London on the 14th at Sing for Water Victoria!
To the authors who've kindly donated signed copies of their books - James Alexander-Sinclair, Martyn Cox (2), Jekka McVicar, Jane Perrone (plus 2 additional books) and Matthew Wilson (2 copies). Also Emma Cooper (Fluffius Muppetus) who donated a lovely bag of cheering wildflower seeds on realising she didn't have a copy of her bookazine available.
Two people have worked especially hard to ensure this site is a success and deserve especial kudos, hugs and kisses:
The Garden Monkey, who's not only provided constructive feedback on the site as it's developed, but has been instrumental in ensuring lots of top notch donations from his/her contacts. Also a little bit of gentle reminding over blogging priorites and lots of encouragement along the way has been much appreciated :)
Last but not least there's Judith aka Threadspider of Everything in the Garden's Rosy (and not forgetting Threadspider's Weblog), who not only has become a firm friend of mine through blogging, she also lives just up the hill from me and has therefore taken the brunt of the doubts I had on whether the idea would work, bounced ideas back about content, tested things out and generally made sure I've had plenty of light relief away from this blog before I've gone totally square eyed. On top of all of that, she's allowed me to plunder her garden for seeds to give away and photograph; her kitchen and produce were used as models for the Bramble Jam recipe photograph, it's her recipe too and she's donated a lovely prize to help with fundraising. If she'd done any more, then it would be her writing this in response to the help received for her fundraising blog, not me.
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