National Garden Scheme

Who we are

Since 1927 the National Garden Scheme (NGS) has been inviting garden owners to open their beautiful gardens to the public and raise money for charity through admissions, teas and cake. The funds this has raised have enabled us to donate over £70 million to date and our major beneficiaries include the Queen’s Nursing Institute, Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Carers Trust and Parkinson's UK. 

The National Garden Scheme does not just open beautiful gardens for charity – we are passionate about the physical and mental health benefits of gardens too and we also fund projects which promote the health and wellbeing benefits of gardens. 

Currently we donate around £3 million annually. Increasing our charitable donations is our principle strategic goal. To achieve this we have ambitious plans to continue to develop our digital channels and create compelling content that not only engages our current audience, but also reaches new ones. We also need to monitor and manage platform performance so as to maximise effectiveness. This will be crucial in achieving our aims of increasing public awareness of the National Garden Scheme, diversifying our audience and growing garden visitor numbers. With around 3,300 gardens opening this year, this an exciting time to join an expanding team and make real change. 

The gardens open from February through October and a small head office team of 13 staff support nearly 600 volunteers organised in county teams throughout England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands.