Roots of scheme's good work

When she died, he asked the nurse to finish her contract by tending to the sick among the poor. This inspired Rathbone to raise funds for nurses to work in deprived districts of the city, and this became – with the help of Florence Nightingale and the endorsement of Queen Victoria – the Queen Victoria's Institute. The QVI took on responsibility for setting standards and training nurses for the new countrywide District Nursing Service. By 1926, and now renamed the Queen's Nursing Institute (QNI), it was running out of funds. A member, Miss Elsie Wagg, suggested they might turn round their finances if people could be persuaded to open their private gardens to the public for "a shilling a head" and donate the proceeds. It turned out they would.

The following year, 609 garden owners did so and raised 8,191. By 1931 more than 1,000 private gardens in England and Wales opened to the public under the banner of the National Gardens Scheme. Each was listed by Country Life in a handbook, The Gardens of England and Wales, now known as The Yellow Book.

In 1980, the The National Gardens Scheme Charitable Trust was created as an independent charity. Last year, almost 4,000 garden-owners participated nationally.