A 10-acre organic open garden in the Brecon Beacons has won the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) Partner Garden of the Year 2022.

Nant-y-Bedd’s visitors cast their votes for the garden in the annual RHS Partner Garden of the Year award themed ‘feel good factor.’

Owners Sue and Ian Mabberley were surprised when they were told their small garden hidden in the black mountains in the Brecon Beacons had won the entire competition.

Sue said: “There are over 200 partner gardens across the UK and many of them are bigger than ours and have more visitors than we do.

“When we were encouraging our visitors to vote for us, we kind of assumed we wouldn’t stand a chance.

“We thought we might come third in Wales which would be very nice but it was a huge surprise to hear we had won the whole thing.”

The couple initially opened the garden 17 years ago for charity through the national garden scheme.

They both retired and Sue spent the majority of her time in the garden and therefore it felt right to open to the public.

After a few years they approached the RHS to become a partner garden requiring the garden to open for free on select days of the year.

During the remaining time they are open profits are put back into the garden for maintenance and improvements.

Sue said: “We aren’t your standard garden with straight lines of plants and roses.

“We are a 10 acre garden of beautiful space.

“We are in a valley in the black mountains surrounded by mature commercial forest giving the garden a lovely back drop.

“We have a lot of wild stuff going on and that’s our aim really, to work in conjunction with nature.

“We have a 3 acre meadow that runs alongside the river. In the summer it’s quite spectacular, we have lovely wildflowers and butterflies it.

“There isn’t any background noise; it’s just peaceful and quiet.

“If anyone stays for less than two hours we think there is something wrong because you need a good couple of hours to get around and see everything.”

Sue explained how voters were required to give their reasons behind their vote and how similar comments had been left in their visitor book in the past.

One visitor said: “It’s a secret gem and a beautiful example of treating a wonderful place with absolute sensitivity and love.

“Praise for it’s wildness, peace and tranquillity and eco-friendly gardening methods.”

Another visitor said: “I arrived with many things on my mind, I left at peace with my world thanks to yours.”

These are just two examples of the many impressed visitors who travel from all over the world.

Sue said: “We get people from all over the world, its never just local people.

“We probably get more visitors from people living in different countries because local people don’t know we are here.”

The garden is set up as an unincorporated organisation with educational purposes so they can share their experience of managing a piece of land in an environmentally sensitive way.

Through doing this, they hope to encourage other people to do the same.

Sue said: “We are very privileged to have such a lovely place and we want to share it with other people.”

Nant-y-Bedd is now closed for until June but you can visit their website: www.nantybedd.com or their Instagram page: @nantybeddgarden for more information on booking a visit next year.