What a roller-coaster season we've had! We hope you've enjoyed visiting gardens in our first full season with Covid. Due to conflicting advice, we were unable to open some gardens at the start of the season, but got underway in October.

Since then we have shared more than 40 gardens, including 12 in the inaugural SA Landscape Festival.

We greatly appreciate the garden owners who generously shared their gardens with more than 14,000 visitors. We had such a variety this season, from gardens focusing on productivity, to a bunch of friendly gardens at Henley, to grand gardens that evoke classical estates.

Many garden owners choose to use their opens to support their favourite charity. This season, your visits helped our garden owners to donate more than $62,000 to about 25 charities - bringing the total raised for charities since Open Gardens SA was established in 2015 to almost $800,000.

Twelve wonderful, professionally designed gardens were showcased in the inaugural SA Landscape Festival, in a joint venture between Master Landscapers of SA and Open Gardens SA. The gardens inspired more than 7000 visitations over one weekend and raised about $22,000 for the hard-working SA Country Women's Association.

In what has become a much-loved tradition, Blue Sky Theatre and Open Gardens SA were able to stage a new play - within Covid guidelines - that not only brought much-needed light relief, but also raised about $11,000 for several charities.

In a commitment to support the community, Open Gardens SA donated $10,000 to BlazeAid to begin much-needed repairs after the terrible 2020 summer bushfires, as well as $9,000 in grants to community gardens.

David Hancock

Chair, Open Gardens SA.