Music, food and flowers to feature at Narrogin Kambarang Spring Open Gardens in October

Five homes will open their gardens to the public for the first time on October 15 as part of the 2023 Narrogin Kambarang Spring Open Gardens. Event organisers Kellie Wilkins and Jesse Layman, who will be opening up the Layman family garden for the event, said that the backyard safari will have something for everyone. “A few of them will have morning tea and coffee available for a gold coin donation and the community garden will have wood fired pizza from 11am to 2pm,” Ms Wilkins said. “We’ve also got raffles and Jesse has a three-hole golf course in his back yard, he’s planning on holding a closest-to-pin comp, a chipping comp and maybe a putting comp.” Ms Wilkins and her mother Gloria Radford brought the annual open garden tour back to life last year after the event had been on hiatus for several years. “We thought we’d have a go to see what happens,” Ms Wilkins said. “We averaged over 250 people per garden during the day, it was amazing. It definitely exceeded all of our expectations, the response was huge so we had to do it again.” The private gardens open on this year’s tour belong to Jesse and Kristen Layman, Yogi and Emma Melvin, Helen Maxwell and Robin and Lesley Booth. “We had a list of people from last year’s event who expressed interest in opening up their garden and we managed to get five including the Gnarojin Community Garden that are all in town which is absolutely fabulous,” Ms Wilkins said. “We have five unique gardens and no two are the same, all of them are different and all showcase different passions.” The day will finish with a sundowner at the Layman family’s garden featuring live music and raffle draws as every person who enters the gates of each garden will get a ticket giving them a chance to win some great prizes. “From a guy’s perspective, I really didn’t want to go last year because I thought it was going to be boring but I had an absolute blast,” Mr Layman said. “It’s kind of voyeuristic in a way, you get to take a peek at what people are doing and get some ideas to take home, it’s really fun.” The garden entry fee is $5, with $3 dollars going directly to charities including the Pyjama Foundation, Stroke Foundation, Friends of Karinya and Jessie House. Entry is free for children under 12. Tickets can be purchased online through the trybooking website.