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The Splendour of the October Garden at West Green House

Hello and welcome to a colourful time at West Green House Gardens.

The growing year may be slowing down, but as you can see there is still plenty to please the eye in the garden this month.

Our apples and dahlias are providing late season delights, with asters, rudbeckias and sunflowers adding highlights to the show. Elsewhere, chard and amaranth are proving their ornamental worth in the potager.

Apple Sunday

Come to our fun family APPLE DAY on Sunday, 11th October. This is one of England's newest traditions, having started in 1990 and we are proud to be joining for the first time with our best apple harvest ever.

Come and pick your own bag of apples, together with the garden team's favourite recipes to give you some delicious ideas of what to do with your plunder when you get home.

In the greenhouse there'll be a variety of apple-themed activities and stalls, including delicious apple juice, scrummy cakes, quizzes and more.

Our tea room will serve an apple themed menu throughout the day and mulled apple juice will be available.

Filming 'Best Bakes Ever', We're on TV!

We were thrilled to welcome Jane Asher and a BBC film crew to the gardens in early September to film some of her brand new TV series called ‘Best Bakes Ever’. As you can see Sweet Pea took a shine to Jane so she could muscle in on the shoot.

The 20-part series features the best recipes from the likes of Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood, Nigella Lawson and James Martin and it was a natural choice to use our garden and tea room (also famed for its cake!) for the links between each recipe slot.

The programmes feature all kinds of sweet and savoury dishes and is the perfect companion for ‘The Great British Bake Off’ season.

Jane and the BBC TV crew were a delight to work with, and our tea room and garden look great, so we’re enjoying this series a lot!

It seems the delight is mutual as Simon Goretzki, the programme's producer said:

"You have an amazing location in West Green House and you and your team were so hospitable and friendly it made what could have been a very tricky shoot an incredibly enjoyable experience. The gardens are beautiful and you have such a rich variety of backdrops for a camera crew that everything we shot looks fantastic."

And How Does West Green House Look on TV?

Here's a sneak preview of our tea room on TV, doesn't it look great?

The programme's currently airing at 3pm on BBC2 on Monday through to Friday, until Friday 16th October (times may vary in Wales and Scotland).

There will be a Christmas special too. It was quite a surprise to find mince pies and twinkling fairy lights a-go-go in the tea room in September!

Full programme details, plus the opportunity to catch-up on iPlayer with the episodes broadcast already are here.

The Garden Turns Spooky

Come and see HALLOWEEN with a difference on Saturday and Sunday 24/25th October! See the potager in its spooky disguise, with frightening foliage and surprises waiting for you. Our main activities will be in the greenhouse where grizzly gourds and weirdly shaped vegetables await you.

Throughout the weekend our gardeners will be on hand to share their Halloween horticultural tips, there will be pumpkin carving demonstrations, and our Tea room will be serving Halloween treats. Enjoy the colours of autumn on this, our penultimate, weekend of the season.

Acclaim from Our Visitors

We've been thrilled with our coverage in newspapers and magazines this year, and it's been particularly heartwarming to find a number of you have taken to social media to say how much you've enjoyed your visits to West Green House.

Personal recommendation means a lot to us and those spontaneous mentions have helped to keep us in the public eye throughout the garden season. Thank you.

To tie-in with 'Best Bakes Ever', a fun review of an earlier garden visit and our freshly baked scones is worth a read, plus author Jane Risdon's enthusiastic and detailed review of her visit in late September shows there is still much to enjoy at this time of the year.

See our News page for other examples.

Yes We Are Open!

West Green House Gardens are waiting to welcome you for the whole month of October. Our usual times apply, Wednesday to Sunday inclusive from 11am to 4.30pm, until Saturday October 31st.

Then we reopen for our CHRISTMAS FAIR on November 18th, daily until December 20th, 11am to 3.30pm.

The boxes of inspirational gifts are arriving already. Marylyn says it's the best collection ever.

More on this to come on the Events page on our website.