Bosham garden festival to celebrate therapeutic power of gardening this Summer

Held from July 17 to 18, the festival boasts a series of talks by well known gardeners, an exhibition by The Embroider’s Guild and a wide variety of pop-up shops selling all manner of green-fingered goodies.

The centre’s plant nursery will be showing off its new Dehlia garden. Grown in raised beds, organisers hope guests will enjoy the wide variety of shapes, shades and colours on display.

Co-founder Marilyn Mountford, hopes the festival will draw attention to the therapeutic benefits of gardening

She said: “When you plant plants, you’re making a project. You’re saying ‘this is going to flower and I’m looking forward to that’, so it’s all about connecting and moving forwards, rather than staying stuck in your own misery”.

But the festival is about more than just flowers. Between workshops on aromatherapy, homeopathy, yoga and meditation, it hopes to give guests other ways of developing wellbeing.

Tickets are available online, cost £15 per person and organisers have promised to adhere to the latest government guidelines in order to keep visitors and volunteers safe.

“Nothing’s set in stone, but the lowest expectation is that we can open, we can practice social distancing, we’ll have timed ticket sales and we’ll do the best we can.”

Despite the lockdown, guests can still visit The Hamblin Centre on scheduled open days via The National Garden Scheme.

The open days, which will take place throughout March must be prebooked online. They give guests a chance to tour the three acre garden for themselves.

Living within its meadow, rock pool and wlidlife pond are more than 135 species of moth, ten varieties of butterfly and five species of bat, making it a hub of biodiversity.

To find out more about the garden festival, the Hamblin centre and to book a slot for an open day, visit hamblincentre.org.uk

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