Three historic gardens on Tenby’s Heywood Lane will be open this Sunday for charity as part of the National Garden Scheme.

The National Garden Scheme gives visitors unique access to over 3,500 exceptional private gardens in England and Wales, and raises impressive amounts of money for nursing and health charities through admissions, teas and cake.

Thanks to the generosity of garden owners, volunteers and visitors the scheme has donated a total of £55 million to nursing and health charities, and made a record annual donation of £3.1 million in 2018.

Founded in 1927 to support district nurses, the scheme is now the most significant charitable funder of nursing in the UK, and beneficiaries include Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and The Queen’s Nursing Institute.

The National Garden Scheme doesn’t just open beautiful gardens for charity - it is passionate about the physical and mental health benefits of gardens too.

The Tenby gardens that will be on open for charity are recorded in the NGS Yellow Book as ‘Heywood Gardens’.

Both John and Shari Argent at Scotsborough House in Tenby had parents who were avid gardeners. Back in Nebraska, Shari, from a young age, was shown by her father how to do the weeding and to pick the yellow leaves off the roses.

John still lives in his family home and continues to develop the garden started laid out by his mother Gwen back in the 50s with love and respect for her plantings, now beautifully mature.

This is a large garden with historical old greenhouses formerly part of the grounds of The Grove next door, a large elegant house, situated near the very large Araucaria (Monkey Puzzle Tree), created from the more modest original by David Harrison a wealthy, and subsequently disgraced local horse trainer, in 1910.

“We have opened our gardens with the Rhys Davies family for the National Garden Scheme for 5 years from 1997 to 2001 - we then had a bit of a time when we went back to the States and the house was leased,” explained Shari.

“When we returned we decided to once again open the gardens this time adding Julius Rhys Davies’ newly added West Grove Garden.

“Last year was the first Open Garden for three gardens and we had 110 visit on the day with a further 40 plus ‘by arrangement’ bringing last year’s total to 150.

“Many of the visitors were from outside the Tenby area so we are hoping to draw more locals this year,” she continued.

Rosemary Rhys-Davies has lived at The Grove since 1965 and along with her son Julius in West Grove. The original tennis court for The Grove is now a formal lawn for Scotsborough House but John and Shari are now leaving some areas of grass to grow long and planting and encouraging wild flowers to make the area more beneficial to wildlife. John has recently acquired an ‘Austrian Scythe’ and maintains some of the grass by scything.

New fruit trees are being trained along the old greenhouse walls where previously peaches grew. Though only one greenhouse remains complete with glass, the walls and foundations of the others have a romance of the past.

A Black Hamburg grapevine features - one of the original vines that were there when John was a child. “They tasted so sweet, they were wonderful,” said John.

“My brother and I helped to thin the grapes, taking out individual grapes from a bunch to enable the others to grow bigger.”

Other historic elements remain in the garden – an Atlantic Cedar, an Acer Palmatum Atropurpureum (Red Japanese Maple) a Victorian Fernery and the Tenby Daffodil, apparently discovered at the Grove by Nurseryman Mr. Shaw in 1872 is still now cultivated at Scotsborough with various shaped shrubs.

All sorts of trees and shrubs in all three gardens have been creatively pruned and topiarised. Eleagnus, holly, bay, cypress and others as well as a large Hydrangea Aspera Sargentiana make up a sample of the large shrubs in the front border.

The shapes of larger evergreen plants provide a structure and contrast to perennial planting that really sets this garden apart from others, rather than just a collection of plants. Creative pruning and trimming of the shrubs with collections of textures and colour become artful and elegant human touches and in this garden complement the various sculptures acquired over years of hosting a local ‘Sculpture in the Garden’ event with the Tenby Arts Festival.

The creative pruning continues from Scotsborough House through to traditional planting in the garden of The Grove and into West Grove where it brings an element of serenity to a garden perfect for children with its secret paths and hiding places.

Opening these three gardens together makes perfect sense and the owners have a friendship going back to the mid-1960s when the Rhys Davies family moved into The Grove.

The gardens will be open from 1 to 5 pm on Sunday.

Tea and cakes will be available in the garden. Limited parking has been kindly made available by Tenby Junior School next door to Scotsborough House on Heywood Lane.