Nant-y-Bedd

Welcome…

…to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Partner Garden of the Year 2022! 

Nant-y-Bedd translates from the Welsh as Stream of the Grave – there are two Bronze Age burial mounds where our stream starts its journey from the top of the mountain.

This site will show you the garden at different times of the year, along with Sue’s general gardening thoughts and details about some of our eco-friendly activities. Either click on the What’s New – for the latest info – or select an area of interest from the menu buttons above.  Better still click Follow at the bottom right of your screen to get instant notification of new posts.  For an idea of the garden throughout the year click on Gallery in the menu bar.

Please note that this is a Blog rather than a Website and so we keep old articles for people to look back on.  Do check the date at the top of any post that you are reading.  For example, if the date is 2nd September 2019, then the post was relevant at that time, but may not be now.  The only parts of the site that are updated are this page, Visit Our Garden and How to Find Us, all the rest are transitory.

Cedric, the Seed King, by Mick Petts.  Photo: Lucy Gaze

Nant-y-Bedd is a 10 acre organic garden and woodland located at 1200 feet up in the Black Mountains in the Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales. Sue has been gardening here for 44 years, assisted over the past 28 or so years by Ian.  Slowly but surely the garden has grown and evolved with various projects being added over the years,  including the natural swimming pond, the shepherd’s hut, tree-sculpture Cedric and most recently, the treehouse..

RHS recognition …

A wonderful new development in 2019 was our selection as only one of ten Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Partner Gardens  in Wales.  To be classed alongside the likes of the National Botanic Gardens of Wales, Aberglasney and Dyffryn Gardens is a great privilege  – and more than a bit scary!  Well it was to start with, but now we are the Partner Garden of the Year 2022, maybe it isn’t. 

A Surprise …

Sometimes called the Garden in the Forest, Nant-y-Bedd comes as a complete surprise with wonderful mix of organic vegetables, imaginative planting, water, stone and timber features giving something for
everyone.

The surprise of Nant-y-Bedd’s garden stops motorists, cyclists and walkers in their tracks as they emerge from the thick, surrounding, conifer woodland. Nant y Bedd is more than just a garden; it’s part of the living landscape, high in the Black Mountains, bounded by the forest and the beautiful Grwyne Fawr river.

Lovingly created over 40+ years, there’s something for everyone. A wonderful mixture of organic fruit and vegetables, imaginative planting, mature trees, winding paths, bridges, pond, stream and ‘designer’ dry-stone walls.  The garden and its surroundings  seamlessly blend into one another, making a sizeable garden feel even bigger.  “Fraying into the landscape” as Alan Titchmarsh said.

What our visitors say…

This is a garden which visitors have described as “the best garden in Gwent, my 3rd visit!”, “magical garden – part of the landscape”, “really inspiring”, “lovely garden, very different, special ‘atmosphere’” and “can’t wait to return”. This year someone said “you have enhanced Nature” and Alan Titchmarsh wrote in our visitors’ book “If there is a more magical wild garden I have yet to find it! Wonderful!!”  –  can’t get much better than that!!

Even if you’ve visited before, it’s worth returning, as the garden is constantly evolving, and every year and season brings its own aspects to bear on the look and feel of this amazing place.

Eco-gardening…

We are proud of our efforts in living in the most eco-friendly way possible, planting to help wildlife, using the local timber for cooking and heating (see the attention grabbing wood-stores!), making our own compost and woodchip paths, and the micro-hydro electricity generating system using the garden’s stream.

In addition to opening for NGS, we have also opened for the Monmouthshire Eco-Open Doors weekend, where the emphasis is on the green living aspects of Nant-y-Bedd rather than purely gardening.

Make the effort to visit (or revisit) Nant-y-Bedd; you’ll not regret it!

For details of our opening times and charges please see the Visit our Garden page. This page also gives information on accessibility and the like.  Group bookings are welcome by prior arrangement (See Group visits page.)

We add new pictures and comments at regular intervals to let you see how things are changing from season to season and year to year.
Just click on Recent Posts to see the latest.

What’s in a name? 

As mentioned above the name Nant y Bedd comes from the two Bronze Age burial cairns at the top of the stream.  We’ve just learnt that, back in the mid-1960’s, a couple of forest workers were up near there planting trees.  As one of them, Randall Lewis, drove the spade into the ground it hit something.  It didn’t sound like hitting a stone, so he and his colleague, Stan Walker, dug down a little and found a perfectly preserved bronze axe head.   It was taken to the National Museum in Cardiff where it was displayed for some years, although it is now thought to be in storage.    I wonder what those Bronze Age people, as they look down from the heavens, think about their land as it is now?