Discover Nant y Bedd: A Garden In The Media

Over the years we have been very fortunate to attract both TV and magazines to Nant y Bedd. All of them featured here have come to us rather than us asking for coverage, which makes them all so much more satisfying.

In 2007 we featured on BBC2 Open Gardens programme just before our first National Garden Scheme opening, with Carol Klein visiting us on three occasions for the filming.

Our first national magazine spread came in Saga Magazine in mid 2014.  The article ran to six pages of wonderful pictures and text.

We also had a lovely bit of success in the English Garden magazine / NGS competition to find  The Nation’s Favourite Garden. We came runner-up in the Wales and Marches region, and as the winner was ‘over the border’ we have laid claim to the title of Wales’ Favourite Garden!  “There’s tidy” as they say around
here!!

Going back to 2017 we had a ‘double-header’ in Country Homes & Interiors (photographed & written by Carole Drake) and House and Garden (Photographed by Britt Willoughby-Dyer and written by Sarah Price).  Bizarrely – and maybe understandably – both featuring the pond as the lead photo!

We started 2018 with a bit of a bang, with this lovely video, filmed and produced by Sophie Windsor Clive, documenting some thoughts on the garden in January.

Also in 2018 there was an article in the Organic Way in September / October 2018 and a feature on our woodland (complete with interesting typo in the sub-heading!) in the Small Woods Association
magazine.

2019 brought Alan Titchmarsh and his Love Your Garden programme. Click to see the clip of Alan here in the garden, and an important and highly topical piece by Clive Aslet in The Daily Telegraph.

In 2021, we hosted BBC Gardeners World and Monty Don who did the links from here during their end of season special on Trees.  Many of our spectacular trees featured, but unfortunately the interview with Sue was left out of the broadcast programme.

TV coverage continued in 2022 when the Welsh language S4C programme Garddio a Mwy came here on a wet and misty day with presenter Sioned Edwards. Despite the weather an excellent programme resulted including some high ‘atmospheric’ drone video (below).

Also in 2022, we had articles in both The Times and Gardens Illustrated (GI).   The Times article, by their chief garden writer, Stephen Anderton, was an excellent piece on Rewilding your
Garden.  Later in the year the Financial Times featured an article focussing on the advantages of face to face learning in relation to gardening.  This featured some of our pics and some excellent quotes from Sue.  You can see more here.

Sue was really thrilled by the GI article as it has been her ambition for many a year to make those august pages.  Written by Sarah Price and photographed by Jason Ingram – you can’t get better than that combination! – it runs to eight wonderful pages.  We’ve been allowed to publish the whole article which you can see here. Here’s a sneak preview of the opening spread.

2023 saw two film crews descend on us. In July the ITV Wales current affairs programme Coast & Country arrived on a lovely sunny day and we filmed mainly around the pond. Later in the year we hosted Caroline Quentin as part of her series on Britain’s National Parks. This was quite special as both Sue and I worked for the Brecon Beacons National Park.

In 2024 we had two articles in the RHS The Garden magazine.  First Sue was one of the “experts” on self-seeders and in the May issue a full 7 page article which covered so many aspects of how Nant-y-Bedd is gardened. 

Sue loves being in these magazines, but has always wanted Nant y Bedd to feature in a book. More long lasting. Well it actually happened in 2023, but we only became aware of it in 2024, when a good friend spotted it in a Paris bookshop – as you do! There’s a full article about it, The Avant Gardens here.

Now, a bit like the proverbial London bus, you wait ages fir one and then two come at once! This has just happened with books featuring us.

First came this magnificent tome from Gardens Illustrated featuring around 50 gardens, including such as Great Dixter, Beth Chatto’s Garden and, of course Nant y Bedd.

Hot on its heels comes this one from Phaidon Press showcasing over 300 outstanding gardens from across the world including, you guessed it, Nant y Bedd.

We’ll do a more detailed revue of both of these in the near future, once we have had a chance to go through the 300 plus pages in each.

We also heard last week that there is to be yet another in Spring 2026. Might need to make a new bookcase!

We add regular pictures on Instagram and Facebook.  Keep an eye open for these updates.