Looking for something to do over the weekend? Interested in Bees, Honey, Beer, Orchids, Compost, Worms and all things Wiggly?

Come and say hi to Gwen - Master Composter and Worm Charmer - at the Bristol Botanic Gardens, where she will be manning the Wiggly Wigglers Stand this weekend:

THERE’S A BIG BUZZ COMING TO THE BOTANIC GARDEN

JOIN OUR CELEBRATION OF BEES AND POLLINATION

VISIT THE ANNUAL BRISTOL HONEY FESTIVAL AND THE NATIONAL GARDENS SCHEME CHARITY OPEN DAY

Saturday 3rd & Sunday 4th September

10am – 4.30pm

This year’s festival is brighter, bigger and better than ever with plenty for everyone to enjoy. On Sunday the event will be combined with the National Gardens Scheme Open Day to make for an enjoyable and interesting weekend highlighting the importance of bees and other pollinators for food production and the maintenance of healthy ecosystems.  Butcombe Brewery will be offering tastings of nature’s bounty for the first time in the Garden. The event will highlight research by the University’s School of Biological Sciences into the current alarming decline in bee and pollinator numbers and what is being done to better understand the reasons for the decline and how it can be reversed.   Exhibits by local cider apple producers and the Gloucestershire Orchard Group will highlight the importance of bees in production of fruit crops.

The Avon Bee Keeping Association will stage their annual Bristol Honey Festival displaying the very finest honey and bee products. A live hive will give visitors an insight into the workings of the honey bee, meanwhile talks and displays will introduce visitors to the importance and pleasure of keeping bees.

Orchid enthusiasts, including Writhlington School Orchid Project, will highlight the relationship between pollinators and flowers in a display of orchids.  Local nurseries will be selling a wide range of plants aimed at providing nectar for bees and habitats for wildlife.

A display of work by a local stitched textile group will demonstrate work by students, some of which has been inspired by the Garden.

Free tours will be offered throughout the weekend giving visitors the chance to see and learn something new about the Garden which will be ablaze with September colour, including many autumn flowering salvias, anemones, grasses, toad lilies and hardy bromeliads.

Fairtrade tea and coffee with locally made refreshments will be available throughout the weekend.

Entrance to the Garden and the exhibition is £4.50 including tours. Children free.

Other Exhibitors will include:

• Cleeve Nursery selling a range of bee friendly plants

• Pennard Plants selling a range of late summer early autumn interest plants

• Derry Watkins Special Plants specialist plants carefully chosen by this well known local nursery

• Butcombe Brewery offering tastings of their range of beers

• Wiggly Wigglers will demonstrate their passion for worm composting and show you how to make your very own British flower bouquet

• Bees for Development will highlight their global work in support of bee keepers
• Bee Guardian Foundation including talks by Dr Adam Hart who will highlight what gardeners can do to improve habitats for bees
• Kelvin Bush Orchids¬† will show case arrange of beautiful tropical orchids
• Bristol Naturalists will highlight their work of recording, monitoring and promoting local biodiversity
• Willa Ashworth sculpture will display her creative, original, garden metalwork, including plant supports, fire dishes and bird feeders

• Alice Shields bee themed ceramics

• Display of stitched textiles by local groups organised by Lynne Quinn displaying quilts

University of Bristol Botanic Garden,

The Holmes, Stoke

Tel: 0117 331 4906