Look out for the Bears among the Bluebells at Hole Park Gardens

Spring has emerged at Hole Park Gardens as seas of bluebells have emerged all over the place!!! Visitors coming to admire the wonderful flora in the woods will also be in for a big surprise when they look up to see a family of bears climbing an oak tree to reach a honey pot!

The delightful new tree sculpture was completed in time for the Easter weekend by local chainsaw carver Tracey Johnson and her assistant Lee Watts who carried out the work on a 20ft high partly felled oak tree. The work took 100 hours to complete.

Tracey, who is a Forest School Leader and teaching assistant in Cranbrook, competed in the speed chainsaw carving event at the Kent Game Fair held at Hole Park last summer and has a studio on the Hole Park estate where display pieces are carved for shows and fairs.

Edward Barham said, “After we took the decision in 2015 to fell an oak tree to make space for an adjacent magnolia which was outgrowing its neighbour, it took us a further two years to find the right person to put our sculpture idea into practice. Tracey was able to develop the concept and add some special touches to the sculpture as it developed including the addition of bees, made from stainless steel wire, which bounce in the breeze around the three bears’ noses.”

The beautiful Hole Park Gardens in Rolvenden, Kent are now open to visitors every day for the spring spectacular until Saturday 10 June 2017.

Hole Park’s website has a bluebell barometer which will be updated regularly in April to allow visitors to check when Britain’s favourite native flowers are looking their best.

One of the Seven Wonders of the Weald, the garden was crowned Kentish Garden of the Year in 2016 by both Visit Kent and Kent Life Magazine.

In addition to the remarkable bluebell wood, visitors in spring can admire many other garden favourites including magnolias, tulips, roses, rhododendrons, azaleas and clematis. The Vineyard Garden has an impressive collection of standard wisterias which will come into flower in early May.