An annual event, from Our Colchester BID, featuring impressive installations, workshops, and activities in this month-long event celebrating the environment, green spaces, and gardening.
The Colchester Garden Festival is an annual event held in Colchester City Centre, promoting Colchester’s greenery and nature. The Garden Festival involves free workshops, pop-up installations, family trails, murals by local artists, and educational events available to everyone in Colchester.
This event is brought to you by Our Colchester Business Improvement District (BID) which looks after businesses within the City centre, whilst also hosting a range of events. The BID’s latest business plan can be found on their website here: https://ourcolchester.co.uk/business-plan.
This year you can find a range of events available, from Sow & Grow workshops to the City wide gnome hunt, there’s something for all age ranges. The Colchester Garden festival helps promote key messaging to visitors, such as recycling, upcycling and sustainability, whilst highlighting the beauty of our City Centre. The Sow & Grow workshops, run by Lee Connelly (Skinny Jean Gardener, BBC Teach & Author) will help visitors to get started gardening and learn about sowing seeds, and caring for wildlife. Participants can then take home their seeds to care for them and watch them grow.
Pop-up school show gardens will be available to view for the duration of the festival by the Jumbo water tower. 13 local schools have designed their own show gardens to the theme of Recycling and Wildlife. Perrywood Garden Centre have kindly provided vouchers for schools to buy plants and materials to include in their show gardens along with providing plants for businesses taking part in the upcycling display competition.
Visitors can get involved in the Garden Festival by voting for their favourite displays via the InColchester website and taking part in the multiple trails around the City centre. Various locations will have floral installations and interactive displays for visitors to enjoy too.
BID Manager, Sam Good says, “We’re thrilled to be bringing the Colchester Garden Festival back to the City centre for a second year. The Garden Festival is a great opportunity to explore the City Centre through a range of activities. These are available for an entire month and can be a great Summer day out with the whole family. You can find out more and plan your visit via the InColchester website”.
You can find the full list of events available during the Colchester Garden Festival on the InColchester website, https://InColchester.co.uk/garden-festival.
