1 Butt Lane

Welcome to garden number one!

Specially planted for all the wildlife that shares gardens with us.

You’ll pass a vegetable garden with a minibeast hotel which houses a field mouse who likes strawberries!

In the fruit garden there’s a Siberian honeyberry and thornless blackberry. A tunnel lets hedgehogs and other creatures pass under the fence.

Recently added: a ‘mini meadow’ of wildflowers.

At the back of the garden is a nature area where red campion, cow parsley, ox-eye daisies and other native wildflowers grow below a mature copper beech tree where wood pigeons and doves live.

You’ll find an outdoor grapevine and fruit trees opposite a mature border of roses and cottage garden plants.

Did you know? The Siberian Honeyberry in this garden in an edible member of the honeysuckle family which is incredibly hardy (down to -40C!)

  3 Drift Close

Here’s a lovely front and rear garden designed with accessibility and ease of maintenance in mind.

Right away you will see what we mean on the approach to the front with its eye-catching slate and stone ‘running brook’, a theme repeated at the rear.

Almost everything is low level aside from the rear garden’s large conifer and Algerian pine.

In the kitchen vegetable garden you’ll find a large mature bay tree while the rear garden’s aspect looks out on to the fabulous farmland sunsets.

   17 Briar Close

With a lovely aspect to farmer’s fields and the National Forest beyond, the rear garden has mixed borders featuring a variety of geraniums, oxalis, roses, peonies, clematis, hydrangeas and shrubs.

The herb beds include sage, thyme, mint, lemon balm and rhubarb.

Cut flower beds include anemones, corncockles, cornflowers, scabious and statice grown from seed and included in the borders and pots.

Lovely, manicured lawn surrounded by laurel and beech hedges.

Take a moment to enjoy the front garden raised beds too. Here you will find lilac, roses, phlox, delphiniums, aquilegia and nigella rampantly self seeding.

3 Briar Close    

Slugs and snails are most definitely not welcome at this beautifully manicured new garden and that’s for one reason only.

Hostas!  Lots of them in the ground, in pots and in hanging baskets!

This garden is lovingly cared for with hostas galore and much more besides.

The shaped Acer trees look splendid and you can also expect to see hydrangeas, sunflowers, London Pride and cosmos as well as great use of garden mirrors.

By the way, the special hanging baskets are from ballcock valves, cut in half and made into unusual and highly attractive hanging baskets. They are even greased around the rims.

Try to get the hostas now Mr Snail!

  30 Sandtop Close

A new garden this year and one which is filled with happy family memories.

Established down the years, all the mature plants, shrubs and even a giant English Oak tree come with a memory for the village couple who planted them.

With a view over farmer’s fields, the rear garden has a lovely aspect with borders of rhododendron, hydrangeas, mock orange, buddleias, small acers as well as hardy crocosmia all surrounding the large oak tree.

There’s a big fish pond too… see if you can spot the baby black (but soon to be gold) fish.

  1 South Close (at the junction with Main Street)

Wristband sale point

Take time to register what this garden offers and you’ll see how inspirational it is.

There’s a shady ‘Moon Garden’ created just for night time pollinators, using plants that flower and offer up their scent at night. Then there are the herbs, including chives, tarragon, oregano, sage, angelica, parsley, rosemary…. the list goes on and on.

In the medicinal section you’ll find comfrey, perennial lady’s mantle, yarrow, jacob’s ladder and marshmallow plant.

The pots are specialised as well, catering to plants used in salads, stews and to compliment pizzas. There’s even a cocktails pot!

Inside the greenhouse notice recycled guttering used as a long shallow container to grow small salad plants.  Clever stuff!

5 South Close

Here’s a South facing garden with a bit of everything.

Cleverly designed on a geometric pattern but in the style of a lovely cottage garden.

Wherever you go it’s interesting to just take some time to look around and see it from a different perspective.

Here you will find an attractive natural water feature with plenty of thought having gone into the planting of the likes of comus dogwoods, false castor oil plant, magnolia, libertia, iris, hydrangea, roses, peonies and alliums.

While mature rowan and holly trees combine to provide the shade.

Special note: Watch out for the big and boisterous but friendly pup.

12 Elstead Lane

Our garden owners think of their special space as “an outdoor living area that just happens to have plants”.

But frankly that’s a genuine understatement.  In reality it’s a lovely village triangular-shaped rear garden with a new seating area packed all around with a large variety of flowering plants.

Here you will find roses, shade-loving heucheras (sometimes known as Coral Bells), fragrant phlox, salvias, ferns, three mature photinia ‘Red Robin’ shrubs, jasmine, beardtongues penstemons…the lovely list goes on.

Take a seat and enjoy this picture perfect Blackfordby garden space

16 Elstead Lane (A Little Corner of England)

Corner plot initially noticeable for its raised flagpole and almost certainly an amusing scarecrow on the front lawn!

It’s a small but jam-packed rear garden complete with a summer house and greenhouse containing home-grown tomatoes and cucumbers, while elsewhere there are climbing clematis and honeysuckle creeping up a large trellis.

A highly organised, tidy garden to the front and rear where you will find hanging baskets, honeysuckle, fuchsias, clematis, sweet peas, raised veg bed, lupins and poppies on the way.

Please close the gate on entry and watch out for the friendly pup!

6 Church Close

Neat village garden with a small, frog friendly pond, herbaceous plants, shrubs and rockery.

Of special interest is the ‘garden door to nowhere’, gargoyles, hawthorns, dwarf lilac, peonies a new herbaceous area and various Acer trees.

In the rear garden, notice the unusual “cloud tree”, a specimen miniature conifer being developed by the owner who has been weighting down the branches and cutting back the foliage.

Cloud pruning is a Japanese method of training trees into shapes resembling clouds.

Plants for sale here.

  Oak Cottage (off Well Lane)  

Blackfordby’s “hidden” listed thatched cottage, itself more than 300 years old, set in 3.7 acres, with paddocks, front and rear gardens, all open for the weekend.  So allow some time to visit.

Featuring orchards, a chicken run, large rear kitchen garden and cottage gardens back and front.

There’s a large selection of very mature magnolia trees, wisterias, many large specimen trees (including English and American oaks, and a judas tree), several ponds, a bird-friendly waterfall and restored well.

Roses and peonies are a feature of this garden at this time of the year.  An Auricular Theatre will have a display at the side of the cottage, courtesy of village woodworker Stephen Sinfield.

Oak Cottage opens for the National Garden Scheme each Spring and was twice featured on BBC Gardeners’ World. 

A variety of plants for sale.

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  Woodland Copse at Oak Cottage off Well Lane

For tree lovers, here’s a place to just sit and relax – technically the smallest part of the National Forest.

It’s well worth visiting this paddock, planted out as new woodland nine years ago.

In total, some 430 native saplings were sown here by the National Forest, including English oaks, silver birch, mountain ash, crab apple, field maple, sweet chestnut, sweet cherry, beech and Scots pine.

Wildlife habitats don’t need to be the size of a national park.  The smallest wildflower area, dead hedges, copse or patch of native trees can be a key refuge for wildlife so long as it’s not drenched in chemicals.

Beware of the badger sett and deep water at the base of this paddock.

  The Old School House – (access from Main Street next to St Margaret’s Primary School or via Well Lane)

Large walled garden of a listed house on different levels (be careful of the steps). The top part, with raised fish pond and a smaller, wildlife friendly pond, is dominated by a huge lime tree.

Mostly shade loving plants including geraniums, penstemons, bamboo, heuchera, climbing hydrangea, rambling rose, unusual castor oil plant, camellias, lupins, azaleas, damsons and honeysuckle.

Outstanding views towards Birmingham and Lichfield from this elevated position, next to St Margaret’s church and primary school, down to the village green and beyond.

NB: The gardener is helped by a mad Springer Spaniel who will be happy to greet you if running free at the time.

Did you know?   The wood of a lime tree does not warp and is still used today to make sounding boards and piano keys. Limes can be coppiced and used for fuel, hop-poles, bean-sticks, cups, ladles, bowls and even Morris dancing sticks.

Church View, 1 Main Street

Whenever a gardener says “it’s work in progress”, what it often means is that great progress has already been made and everyone can clearly see exactly where it’s heading.

This garden is no exception.  The owner started from scratch and has accomplished much, having established mock orange, jasmine, honeysuckle and a mature beech hedge.

Raised beds are coming along while broad beans, salads and tomatoes are grown in higher than usual raised beds.

There’s no better view of St Margaret’s Church from anywhere else in Blackfordby.

Freshly baked scones, fruit cakes and TEAS/COFFEES are available here for charity. Plants on sale and there’s a raffle.

Note: Beware of the foot access from The Black Lion, as there’s no pavement and vehicles can arrive quickly down the hill.

Upper Spring Cottage – 6 Main Street

A garden with two unusual irrigated vertical living walls – and home to anything from ferns to grasses and from herbs to hardy perennials.

Also there is a fenced off vegetable garden, flowering borders and happy chicken coop.  The garden is owned by a crafter whose ‘Woman Cave’ has become a special sanctuary for sowing.

Please close the gate on entry to keep the friendly dogs in!

Note:  Blackfordby Old School Room is opposite this garden, selling refreshments on both weekend days.

Sandtop Farm House, 2 Sandtop Lane       

A professionally designed large garden that never stands still from one year to the next, with new areas under constant development.

One third of an acre, the garden surrounds the house with a good deal of architectural interest, cleverly organised into distinctive sections interspersed by beautifully manicured lawns.

The garden embraces an eye-catching circular pond (with overhanging decking), kitchen garden and vegetable plot and an interesting selection of mature shrubs.

Take note of the growing range of pleached trees, used to extend the height of the garden.

  32 Main Street

Cast your mind back to the Covid year when we all had to close up shop for months on end.

This garden owner put that time to good use.

Welcome to a professionally designed and beautifully stepped garden

with nature in mind and the ultimate aim of bringing the birds back.

This garden owner just wanted somewhere to sit out an enjoy being surrounded by plants – and certainly achieved that.

Spend some time stepping up and down among the lavender, named roses, black bamboo and cotoneaster among the many other eye-catching plants and shrubs.

A knee-high kitchen garden was also created for ease of use.

A lovely village garden to just sit in, soak up and enjoy.

Note: Be careful crossing Main Street here as it can be a fast road and there is no pavement on entry.

Recommended Route(s)

The open gardens in Blackfordby are spread far and wide so it is advisable to follow our recommended route on foot, having parked if necessary on the football field which will be clearly signposted off Main Street.