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A look inside Bedminster’s secret gardens
Bedminster is a welcoming neighbourhood with well kept streets and ample independent shops and eateries on its main drag, North Street.
But it is also characterised by long rows of close-knit terraced houses with small gardens.
This urban set-up, coupled with the area’s lack of green space and street trees, inspired Matthew Symonds and other residents to set up Bedminster’s Secret Gardens Trail in 2009.
is needed now More than ever
In that first year they had nine participants set on, Symonds said, making the area “greener and more pleasant for everybody”. The annual event grew exponentially and this year, in its biggest weekend yet, it boasts participation from 39 private and six community gardens.
Maps of the trail are available to pick up from Riverside Garden Centre and Windmill Hill City Farm, or can be downloaded from bloomingbedminster.org.uk – photo: Matthew Symonds
For one weekend in June, visitors on the trail are invited in to find out what’s hidden behind the garden gate and take home inspiration and advice.
“It’s amazing when you go through a gate having no idea what’s on the other side of it and can really be blown away by what people have done in a small garden,” Symonds said, speaking about the trail on BBC Gardeners’ World in April.
“It’s extraordinary what people do even when constrained in the tiniest of spaces.”
While residents nurture their gardens for a variety of reasons, including a love of plants and the calming effects of a green space to sit and relax, a primary objective for many is to encourage wildlife, as championed by My Wild Bedminster and the BS3 Wildlife Group.
Providing habitat in built-up residential spaces such as Bedminster is crucial, where animals need cover from unfavourable weather conditions as well as food and water sources to fuel them as they move through the urban landscape.
Even small gardens can provide these elements, becoming havens for birds and other wildlife when they provide climbing plants that offer cover and insects to eat, and ponds to drink from that also, in themselves, support valuable biodiversity.
One resident has organised a fun treasure hunt around their garden of all the items the very hungry caterpillar ate, reproduced in knitting and crochet – photo: Mel Osborne
Residents say the initiative has helped to build strong community relationships, not only for those with green fingers.
Community members have been getting involved in various ways, including crafting woolly flowers to decorate neighbourhood post boxes, nicknamed ‘blooming lovely post box toppers’.
This guerilla crochet post box topper on North Street has been created by one of a team of community volunteers to celebrate the Secret Gardens weekend – photo: Hannah Massoudi
Bedminster’s Secret Gardens 2025 takes place over June 14-15, from noon to 5pm: find out more at bloomingbedminster.tumblr.com/secret-gardens
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