The Bishop’s Palace & Gardens in Wells will be holding its popular English Country Garden Festival from 22nd-24th June. This will be the 4thconsecutive year that the event has taken place and the Festival will once again re-unite garden-lovers with garden specialists from around the country.
Designed to celebrate the Great British Garden, the stunning 14-acre grounds of the Palace will feature guided tours, live music, expert speakers, BBQ food, ‘have a go’ skills and crafts and over 40 stalls, including a fabulous range of nurseries selling unusual and popular plants.
The Festival will be opened on Friday 22nd by Jo Thompson, one of the UK’s leading Garden Designers, who has been the recipient of three Gold and five Silver Gilt medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Jo will also give a talk about Garden Design at 11:30am. Also appearing on Friday is Andrew Wilson, award winning gardener, designer and lecturer – his talk at 2:30pm will be entitled “Garden Design; truth is stranger than fiction”. Also appearing over the weekend are Helen Yemm and Mike Dilger.
This year, for the first time, the Royal Horticultural Society will be in attendance on Saturday 23rd June and will be holding a “Gardener’s Question Time” designed to help keen horticulturalists and amateur garden enthusiasts to deal with some of the problems that they come up against throughout the gardening year.
Musical acts will feature Mr Chubb’s Gastric Band on Friday, Wells City Band on Saturday and Marianne Sutton on Sunday. Demonstrations will take place throughout the weekend of Letter Carving, Willow Weaving, Chainsaw Sculpture and Floristry and visitors will also be able to try their hand at Croquet on the Croquet Lawn, under the watchful eyes of the Palace Croquet Club!
The Garden Festival is included with standard admission to the Palace & Gardens. For full details of speakers and entertainment, see www.bishopspalace.org.uk
Tickets are available from the Palace website (www.bishopspalace.org.uk), Shop and by telephone (01749 988 111), with advance discounts and Group rates available.
