Discover more at Bodnant Garden
Find out when Bodnant Garden is open, how to get here, the things to see and do and more.
Our work at Bodnant Garden
Maintaining a historic, horticulturally renowned Grade I listed garden is an all-year round labour of love for our gardeners, garden volunteers and students. Discover how the team work to keep it looking beautiful.
A year of jobs to do at Bodnant
As the ground warms up in spring the team begin weeding, mulching beds with home-made compost, planting and pruning shrubs (including a mass pruning of our famous hydrangeas) and clearing away acres of fallen blossom.
Spring cleaning and abseiling
Other major jobs of the spring are deadheading daffodils in the Old Park, when the team gets a much-needed helping hand from volunteers – and weeding the slopes of The Dell, a special task done by gardeners trained in abseiling.
Deadheading, pruning and mowing
With the warmer, longer days of summer the garden is at its peak and the team are busy deadheading roses, feeding and watering flower borders, cutting and shaping box hedges, summer pruning laburnum and wisteria and mowing, mowing, mowing! Whether it's manicured lawns or wildflower glades and meadows, there's always grass to be cut somewhere on our 80 acre site.
A Mammoth task
As the leaves turn in autumn gardeners turn their attention to scarifying lawns and renovating turf, tidying herbaceous displays and planting spring bulbs. The end of the season brings the mammoth task of collecting 80 acres of fallen leaves, which go onto our compost heaps.
Winter warmers
While many gardens are ‘put to bed’ in the colder season there’s still plenty to do at Bodnant; pruning roses, maintaining the Winter Garden, mucking out the streams which run from top to bottom of the garden, tree work and unglamorous, but essential jobs like re-gravelling paths, repairing drains and fixing rabbit fences.
Pruning the Laburnum Arch
In the depths of frosty January comes the task of pruning the world-famous Laburnum Arch, which can take two skilled gardeners around a month.
The season closes with a big team effort planting snowdrops ‘in the green’. We plant around 20,000 each February in the Old Park meadow, helped by visitors – a great way to mark a new year in the garden.
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History of Bodnant Garden
Discover how a 'dwelling by a stream' in Snowdonia's foothills grew into a global horticultural haven thanks to generations of the McLaren family and Puddle head gardeners.
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Bodnant Garden's botanical collections
Explore the many exotic and rare plants and trees at Bodnant Garden, including five National Collections, as well as Wales’s largest collection of UK Champion Trees.
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The people of Bodnant Garden
The garden at Bodnant is the work of generations, starting with the Pochin family and their move from Manchester. Learn about the people who made Bodnant into what we see today.
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Visiting Bodnant Garden with your dog
With 80 acres to explore, there’s a walk to suit everyone. From 1 April to the end of September, dogs are welcome on short leads (not extendable) every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Find out more about bringing your dog to Bodnant Garden here.