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EnglishWhere the National Garden Scheme's Garden Opening Money Goes
Updated
Money raised through National Garden Scheme garden openings goes to nursing and health charities. According to the scheme's own figures, a record £3,875,596 was donated from funds gathered at garden openings during 2025. That money is channelled through the charities the scheme supports, and it reaches people through the nurses, health professionals and case workers who care for them.
What the 2025 donations supported
The National Garden Scheme states that its 2025 donations helped thousands of people living with:
- Cancer
- Parkinson's
- Poor mental health
- The pressures of unpaid caring
The funding works by backing the frontline staff — nurses, health professionals and case workers — who provide care and support to those groups. In other words, the visitor-facing side (admissions, teas and cake) is the fundraising engine, and the beneficiary side is a set of nursing and health charities.
How the money is raised
The scheme describes three main streams that feed its donations:
| Source | What it means for a visitor |
|---|---|
| Admissions | The entry fee paid at the garden gate |
| Teas | Refreshments sold during openings |
| Cake | Home-made cake sales, a well-known feature of many openings |
Garden owners open their private gardens to visitors, and the proceeds from these openings are gathered and then donated. The scheme says it gives visitors access to over 3,300 exceptional private gardens across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, and that it raises money for nursing and health charities through admissions, teas and cake.
Why the 2025 total matters
The £3,875,596 figure is described by the scheme as a record, and as a landmark year. It is the clearest single number on the site for answering "where does the money go?" — it quantifies the total donated from a year of garden openings, rather than describing an individual garden's takings or a single charity's grant.
What is not stated
The page evidence does not break the total down by individual charity, by region, or by how much came from admissions versus teas and cake. It also does not state what proportion of any garden's admission price is donated. If you need that level of detail, it is not available from the material summarised here.
The practical takeaway
If your reason for visiting an NGS garden is partly to support health charities, the mechanism is straightforward: you pay an admission price, often buy tea and cake, and the funds gathered from openings are donated to nursing and health charities. The 2025 total of £3,875,596 is the scheme's own measure of what that adds up to across a year, and the stated beneficiaries are people affected by cancer, Parkinson's, poor mental health and unpaid caring, reached through the nurses, health professionals and case workers funded to support them.