A garden opened to the public, even for a single afternoon for charity, places its address on a record that survives the visit by decades. The National Gardens Scheme in Britain, the Open Garden Squares programme, the various continental equivalents, and the schemes that run under the auspices of the Royal Horticultural Society, all maintain published lists of the gardens that participate, with their addresses, opening dates, and a description of the planting and the proprietors.

The lists are not narrow circulation. They are printed in handbooks distributed to the membership of the schemes; they are reproduced in newspapers, in local guides, and in the gardening press; they are increasingly digital and searchable. A garden that opened once in 1998 may still be findable in the relevant archive today.

The detail in the entries is, by the standards of these matters, substantial. The address is given to the level of the village; the proprietors are named where they have agreed to be, which most do; the description of the garden is precise enough to identify the property to anyone who reads it. The entry is, in effect, a small architectural notice attached to the year's calendar of visits.

Subsequent coverage extends the visibility. The visiting press writes up notable gardens; the photographers commissioned by garden magazines visit and photograph; the magazines publish features that repeat the address and the description. The same property accumulates, over years of opening, a corpus of published material that is more detailed than any disclosure the proprietor would have offered without the scheme.

The work in this category is undramatic and well-suited to discretion. The opening can continue; the description in the scheme's literature can be considered; the addresses given can be the lodge rather than the principal house; the proprietors can be named in the form they prefer rather than in the form the scheme defaults to. The charitable purpose is preserved; the assembled record is shaped more deliberately than it otherwise would be.