We feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to live in this very special place, craft a garden, and learn from the land and the natural world that surrounds us, for many years. Along with sharing some of this experience freely through the medium of this website and blog posts, it’s been wonderful to welcome small numbers of friends, family and complete strangers to Gelli Uchaf over many years. We know that many leave with fond memories and sometimes inspiration gleaned from time spent in this place. This is a great reward for us, which we can balance against the sometimes mundane slog involved in keeping the show on the road and striving to ensure that next year is, weather permitting, even more exciting. For 2024, we’ve added lots more bulbs around the garden, particularly in our Malus and Sorbus copse.

In 2010 we were delighted to be accepted into the National Garden Scheme (NGS), which enables selected private gardens in England and Wales to open occasionally to the public for charity, and we’ve been lucky to be able to open under the scheme since then.

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE ONLY OPEN BY PRIOR ARRANGEMENT,

SO DO PLEASE CONTACT US BEFORE VISITING.

Visits need to be pre-booked with us in advance. As a guide to planning a trip, many visitors spend around two and a half hours whilst here, looking around and having a natter.

Directions to find us are given further down this page.

There’s a simple route around the garden for a journey of exploration on its narrow paths, and we can supply a garden map and notes of interest about how the garden has developed over time. You’re very welcome to bring your own refreshments and enjoy a picnic. We have lots of separate seating options around the garden for visitors to enjoy such refreshments, and we have a unique undercover option in one of our airy barns, should the weather turn around.

Alternatively, you can pre-book tea/coffee and a selection of Fiona’s delicious homemade cakes to enjoy when you’re here (£4.00 pp).

Please accept that we won’t be able to open every day, so we may have to decline a visit on a particular day or suggest a different time slot on a particular day.

We’re currently one of the few NGS gardens in Wales to open as part of their Snowdrop Festival: (Do watch any videos on the HD setting on the cog next to the YouTube logo)

We begin our opening season on February 3rd 2024. Please note that we’re also stopping daily openings after Sunday, July 7th this year, (although we might have occasional short-notice pop-up openings later in the year advertised on our blog, and via email to those on our mailing list).

If you’d like to visit the garden, then please contact us, preferably by email as below, giving us at least 24 hour’s notice.

Do also check weather forecasts before booking – sometimes access to the garden is impossible because of strong winds, heavy rain or snow. We’ve recently discovered this free global weather app, (click on Ventusky.com,) which seems to give the most accurate weather forecasts for the particular and very local micro-climate here. Type in Rhydcymerau to the search location, and check out all the weather detail options on the left of the screen, for a great idea of what you might experience for your visit.

Please bear in mind that some parts of the garden are steep and in wet or icy weather parts can become slippery, so do wear appropriate footwear, and if necessary bring walking sticks, umbrellas and warm clothing. The best way to find out about what’s changing here is to either follow this blog (click the tab on the homepage), or email us, (as below), and ask to go onto our mailing list.

To book a time to visit the garden:

Either

Preferably email us: thegardenimpressionists@gmail.com

or phone: 01558 685119

PLEASE DON’T JUST TURN UP – We don’t allow visits from anyone who hasn’t booked a timed slot as above, and you’ll probably have wasted a long journey. 

The garden now has millions of bulbs in it, but every year we still plant lots more and now have an interesting collection of nearly 150 different Welsh provenance snowdrops, to complement our named forms (click here). As well as over 200 different forms of daffodils, (click here for more about these national flowers of Wales), including many vintage cultivars.

So if you’d like to visit, why not plan a trip now with some friends?

The garden admission of £5 per person visiting, goes to the half a dozen charities which the NGS supports, click here, centred around nursing charities like Marie Curie and Macmillan nurses. Julian also set up and managed the website for the Carmarthenshire Meadows Group, (click here), for the first 3 years, which may be of interest to readers. Encouraging more flowers and other wildlife into our meadows is an ongoing project here, with the upper dry, and lower wet hay meadows becoming ever more colourful and florally diverse in mid-summer.

Over the last 12 years, Julian has begun to explore the fascinating world of honey bees, and we currently have about 4-5 colonies which have homes in a variety of boxes around the garden which are managed in a minimally interventionist manner. Click here for a separate website page about “The Hut”, a shepherd’s hut which we built in 2018 at the top of our upper hay meadow, which gives wonderful views of the changing landscape, throughout the year.

Garden View pages accessed via the drop-down boxes at the top of the home page are designed to give an idea of what you might expect to see through the seasons on a visit to the garden, (as well as being a record for us of how the seasons vary year on year, and how the garden is inevitably changing over time). Or look at my developing series of short “Harmonies” videos compiled from clips taken during the different seasons, which give the best idea of how the garden looks and sounds at a particular time of year.

Directions to the garden (SA19 7PY for Sat Nav users):

We suggest that you print off these directions and our phone number to bring with you, since some visitors do get lost en route to us, and mobile reception is a little patchy in the landscape around us!  

Approaching from Llandovery –

Take the A40 for Llandeilo. In Llanwrda turn right onto the A482. After about 6 miles immediately before a sharp right-hand bend, bear left downhill onto a narrow road to Crugybar and Llansawel. Continue straight on for about 2 miles, and then turn left at the T junction, and immediately right for Llansawel. In Llansawel turn right at the T junction, with the Angel Inn on your left, then continue out of the village, bearing right past the chapel, until you reach Rhydcymerau after about 4 miles. In the village take the left turn signed to Llidiad Nenog. (There is a phone box on the corner which you pass). About 200 yards further on turn right up a half-mile farm track immediately beyond a new bungalow – there are 2 mailboxes at the end of our track with house names. The track has rain run-off channels (like mini reverse sleeping policemen!), so please drive slowly. Bear right up the hill at the first property to reach Gelli Uchaf which is at the end of the track.

Approaching from Llandeilo  – 

Take the A40 towards Llandovery and then very quickly take the first left onto the B4302 signed to Talley. Continue along this road through Talley. About a mile beyond Talley turn left onto the B 4337 signed to Llansawel and Llanybydder. You cross the river Cothi almost immediately. Continue straight on through Llansawel, bearing right past the chapel, until you reach Rhydcymerau after about 4 miles. In the village take the left turn signed to Llidiad Nenog. (There is a phone box on the corner which you pass). About 200 yards further on turn right up a half-mile farm track immediately beyond a  new bungalow – there are 2 mailboxes at the end of our track with house names. The track has rain run-off channels (like mini reverse sleeping policemen!), so please drive slowly. Bear right up the hill at the first property to reach Gelli Uchaf which is at the end of the track.

Approaching from Llanybydder –

From the A485 in Llanybydder take the B 4337 towards Llansawel. Follow this for about 4 miles into Rhydcymerau. Take the first turn right in the village opposite a row of bungalows and continue for about 200 yards and then turn right up a half-mile farm track immediately beyond a new bungalow – there are 2 mailboxes at the end of our track, with house names. The track has rain run-off channels (like mini reverse sleeping policemen!), so please drive slowly. Bear right up the hill at the first property to reach Gelli Uchaf which is at the end of the track.

Approaching from Carmarthen :

Take the A485 from Carmarthen. In Llanllwni take the first turn right, (after the B4436 left turn to Llandysul). This takes you up over Mynydd Llanllwni. Follow this road over the mountain, straight on at all junctions heading for Rhydcymerau, and enjoy some of the best views in Wales! Once you have come down the hill, and just before the village sign on the right, turn left up a half-mile farm track immediately before a new bungalow – there are 2 mailboxes at the end of our track, with house names. The track has rain run-off channels (like mini reverse sleeping policemen!), so please drive slowly. Bear right up the hill at the first property to reach Gelli Uchaf which is at the end of the track.

Our current YouTube channel compilation clips, (as below), give an idea of the more diverse birdsong and insect soundscape, which has developed as the garden and meadows have matured:

In November 2017 we were thrilled to hear that our garden was one of just 3 in Wales, and 13 in the UK to be featured in international photographer Claire Takacs’ stunning book of 70 gardens from around the globe, titled “Dreamscapes”. This was supplemented by the garden also featuring as one of just 14 in the UK, and 41 in total from around the world, in the detailed and beautiful 2022 book written by Noel Kingsbury with more of Claire’s stunning photos, “Wild: the Naturalistic Garden”. A huge honour for our Welsh hillside plot to sit alongside some of those designed by famous international designers.

For the most complete discussion of the garden’s creation and development over the years, you could look at the roughly 45-minute review we were asked to give in June 2021, on the Garden Masterclass YouTube channel, below:

Below are a few of the comments made by visitors to the garden, or website, since we opened it to the public:

‘Just beautiful, especially up in the shepherd’s hut’. HR, Melbourne, June 2023

‘Thank you for the view of Paradise’. IT April 2023

‘Spent the most wonderful morning followed by yummy tea. Thank You’. MN,  February 2023

‘What a wonderful place you’ve created – a whole philosophy’. M/E. March 2022 

‘A walk in the garden of Eden. Worth travelling from Anglesey’.  H/R E. July 2022.

‘Well, my first visit to beautiful Gelli Uchaf, but definitely not the last! Am in absolute awe of the delights on offer, and I don’t just mean the cake, but that also has to have its moment in the sun! What you have achieved in a relatively short time, is amazing. The diverse areas, each with its own distinct character yet all combine seamlessly to make one of the most interesting and charming gardens that I have had the pleasure of visiting.
Thank you to you both, Fiona and Julian, for your warm welcome and for sharing your knowledge and your amazing garden.’  CC, Lampeter – August 2021

’10 of the best NGS gardens open for snowdrops in 2022′. Daily Telegraph. Click here. 

‘An oasis of calm and beauty’       NW Brechfa 

‘ Even on a wet day – beautiful’ G.E. Llandovery

‘Wonderful day despite the deluge – we’ll be back.’ AJ +3 Llanrhystud.

‘What a beautiful place, so lovely and such magic here’         VW Pontyberem

‘Fabulous garden and wonderful welcome! – delightful touches to the garden – paths, steps, and furniture – Many thanks.’         S4C Wedi 3 Film Crew

“Wondrous garden. Thanks for your hospitality” Carol Klein & BBC Gardener’s World Team Feb 2016. (Click here for more)

‘Beautiful and inspirational – a hidden gem of a garden’           A & M  Cilycwm

‘Magic around every corner’      SC Milford Haven 

‘They have used colour densely and vibrantly as an impressionist painter might. Drifts of small flowers mimic painting techniques such as pointillism – painting with small dots of colour; foliage patterns resemble short, distinct brush strokes while the changing light, shadow and the moving season is a constant feature, making the garden as fresh and original as the ground-breaking French impressionists themselves.’  Naomi Slade – Amateur Gardening Magazine.

‘Lovely spending time in your absolutely beautiful garden’. Claire Takacs, (First International Garden Photographer Of The Year, 2008), Melbourne 

‘Forget the perfect trophy garden. Today’s finest landscapes are positively wild…Some of the gardens are lower-key but no less naturalistic or reflective of gentle artistry. In the Welsh hills of Carmarthenshire, Julian and Fiona Wormald have spent 24 years creating a densely planted, multilayered garden of bulbs, perennials and shrubs around their 17th-century Welsh longhouse.’ Adrian Higgins. Washington Post.  Click here. 

‘As soon as you step out onto the terrace in front of the house – a riotous tapestry of low growing ground-cover plants – it becomes immediately apparent that this is no ordinary garden. Delve a little deeper and you find that this is a garden that brings together real technical innovation and creativity in a way that is all too rare’. Noel Kingsbury. Gardens Illustrated magazine June 2017.

‘Inspiring. Truly wonderful. Such toil and commitment’  D,P&P Abergorlech 

‘Fantastic meadows and garden. Learnt a lot from visiting.’  BC Gloucestershire.‘Truly wonderful. Gardens within a garden and amazing plants and natural effects’. M.T. Salem W.I. Group visit. 

‘Amazing!’  JF. S. Africa 

“Thank you for sharing your vast knowledge – beautiful garden.” KW Mynydd 

‘Stunning garden and impressive work’ S.K. Hampshire 

“Inspiring and lovely” JS Porthyryd

‘ Would like to see the garden in every season’. E.R.D. Llanfair Clydogau 

‘Thank You. What an amazing garden. Inspiring.’ K&P London 

‘Magical’ BW Llangadog 

‘Beautiful day, wonderful setting, inspirational garden and photography’. P&C Talsarn 

‘Inspirational! A tribute to years of hard physical effort plus sensitive thoughtful design.’ H&S Cardigan 

Some of the images Julian has taken over the years in the garden have formed the basis for a unique range of silk scarves which we design and Fiona makes here. Click here for the separate web page which features the scarves.

We have a few of our favourite plants available for visitors to purchase at reasonable prices, including around 50 of our most vigorous snowdrop varieties, during February/March. We only grow plants which thrive here, and much in the garden has indeed been propagated by us, including many trees from seeds and perennials from cuttings and divisions. We have a small unheated greenhouse, but all of our plants have to survive in our climate without any real cosseting and are grown mainly in our own soil/leaf-mould-based compost to avoid buying very much in the way of planting materials.

If you’re travelling a distance, why not also think of visiting these other nearby attractions whilst you’re in the area. We can personally recommend all of them as being beautiful, unique, and value-for-money experiences, and are where we take visitors. When we have a day off.

• Aberglasney Gardens. Restored over the last 15 years, in a wonderful setting in the Tywi valley, these acclaimed gardens are a mix of centuries of hard landscaping and contemporary planting, with a mature wooded backdrop. Click here for details. 40 minutes from the garden.
• The National Botanic Garden of Wales. Another massive project developed around the millennium and maturing and improved year on year. Difficult to see it all on one visit, but always something of interest at any time of the year, around a very extensive site. We have become life members, to enjoy its ongoing developments on a regular basis. Click here for details. 50 minutes from the garden.
• The Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. Stretching from Amroth in the South to St. Dogmaels in the North, this stunning path is listed in the top ten of global hikes. Some rank it as number 2. With stunning scenery for most of the route, interesting towns and villages along the way, and excellent public transport links via the Pembrokeshire Council operated shuttle buses which serve the whole route, small sections can easily be tackled. Much of it is within one and a quarter to one and a half hour’s drive from our garden. For a brilliant idea of what the scenery is like, follow the link to the wonderful record created by my brother-in-law, who walked the whole of it in 18 days in the spring of 2013. Click here for the link.
• The Llanerchaeron Estate. About 40 minutes from the garden towards the coast at Aberaeron, this is our favourite National Trust property locally. A pretty, small-scale, working self-sufficient estate created in the C18th around a beautiful historic early John Nash designed house. Worth visiting for the house, estate and farm buildings and gorgeous, still productive, walled fruit and vegetable garden. Click here for the link.
•  Dinefwr Park and Castle is the other National Trust property close by which is almost as interesting (about 25 minutes from the garden). A C12th Welsh castle commanding the Tywi valley, interesting historic mansion and C18th deer park with both deer and long-horned white cattle, located on the doorstep of the lovely town of Llandeilo. Click here for the link.
• There are many other lovely private gardens to visit in the local area, opening like us through the NGS. Click here for the NGS garden finder web pages.

Accommodation: There are multiple wonderful accommodation options locally in the beautiful Carmarthenshire scenery for those wishing to stay in the area – hotels, B&Bs, self-catering cottages, etc.  We can personally recommend a handful:

Ty Mawr Hotel, Brechfa – Wonderful food and a warm welcome here. Click here for more. 20 minutes from our garden

Forest Arms Brechfa – George and Louise –  Another nearby favourite venue with a warm welcome and lovely food. Click here for more. 20 minutes from our garden

Glanrannell Barn Holiday cottages – Andy and Elena – Very close to our garden and with 3 separate cottages which can be hired individually or together, at very reasonable rates. Click here for more. 15 minutes from our garden

Dildre Cottage – David and Cecelia – Click here for their gorgeously located holiday accommodation with stunning views, built by David to a very high standard. 40 minutes from our garden

Abermarlais Caravan Park – Tanya and Stephen.  A beautifully located peaceful site in the Tywi valley. Click here for more. 30 minutes from our garden    

Updated 08/01/2024