Let me take you along a rain-slick path into a hidden garden of dripping ferns, towering leaves and vividly coloured blooms. It’s raining, of course (we are in Northumberland, after all) but the garden is glistening and jungle-like: proof, if proof were needed, that a misty drizzle is every bit as romantic as sunshine. This was my discovery of the week.
Bide-a-Wee Cottage and its delightful nursery, near Morpeth in Northumberland, is open from May to August, on Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons only. I’m told that June, when the Himalayan lilies are in flower, is the best month to go. If you can’t get there – they have a pretty fabby online mail order service, too.
Sally Nex 
That's a very nice discovery. It's new to me too, even though I spent inordinate amounts of time as student near Morpeth one summer on one of the university farms drying and weighing grass samples for a PhD student's thesis on silage. Oh the wondrous things I've done in the past to earn a bit of cash!On refelction I think I prefer your experience of 'near Morpeth'
I just stumbled upon your blog and really enjoyed this article. Beautiful photography, too. I'll be back!
VP – this is great, it's all coming out now. I had no idea this would open up such a Pandora's box of recollections. Sileage?! I hope they paid you well…and Lisa – thanks 😀 I enjoyed your blog too, veggies are right up my street!
I seem to remember I got a crisp tenner for 3 days work (it was 1978), free board and lodging, lots of unpasteurised milk in tiny little churns and a free trip to The Hoppings on Newcastle's Town Moor.Luckily I was dealing with freshly cut grass rather than the smelly end of sileage!Another part of the project turned into my final year thesis on animal nutrition. I won't tell you more about that bit, because it involves lots of fluids!I've just been reading my copy of The Garden and I see this gardens included in the RHS reciprocal gardens scheme. Free entry for you until the end of the month folks! If you're an RHS member…
ah yes the days before minimum wage… at my first horticulturally-related job, when I was 14 (it was before a minimum age came in too) was taking cuttings at a fuchsia nursery and I was paid the princely sum of 68p an hour. I thought that was quite good at the time, too.Please, no fluids. And I forgot to say I got in free with my RHS card. The reciprocal gardens scheme is absolutely brilliant – it gives me free entry to the fabulous Wilton House (my mum's local stately home near Salisbury) every time I visit her, too 😀