This year the Dorset Garden Festival returns featuring the new Fire and Food Festival too.

Both events take place at the multi-award-winning attraction Sculpture by the Lakes.

They also coincide with the final five days of FORM 2022 – the sculpture parks’ biggest sculpture event of the year – so visitors can experience three festivals for the price of one.

Internationally acclaimed sculptor and founder of Sculpture by the Lakes, Simon Gudgeon, said, “We know nature and garden lovers enjoy a visit to Sculpture by the Lakes every bit as much as art lovers, so this is an event created with them in mind.

“We have brought in some fantastic independent nurseries and artisan producers offering a range of unique and special garden items, and of course visitors can enjoy everything Sculpture by the Lakes has to offer alongside, including our current FORM 2022 exhibition of more than 200 sculptures.”

Sculpture by the Lakes, with its 26-acres of gardens, woodland, river and lakes, is already a gardener’s delight, but the Dorset Garden Festival will add to its appeal.

Plants including, aquatics, perennials, ornamental ferns, bedding plants, shrubs, fruit bushes and trees will be on offer, with advice on their care from the independent nurseries that grew them.

Artists and crafters will showcase unique garden products and ornaments, from sculptures to handmade planters and furniture, to garden tools.

At the Fire and Food Festival live fire cooking demonstrations will take place, with plenty of food to sample.

Chefs include:

• Mat Follas – Dorset restaurateur, previous Masterchef winner and wild food expert
• Marcus Bawdon – editor of the UK BBQ Magazine and author of Food and Fire
• Luke Vandore-Mackay – director of High Grange Devon – an outdoor covered woodland dining and cookery school.

Meat will be supplied by the award-winning Brace of Butchers, Poundbury.

Stalls will offer barbecue and alfresco dining supplies, including fire bowls from the Studio Gudgeon range.

Simon added: “I have developed a love for fire cooking over the past couple of years, and that has given rise to a new element of the garden festival – Fire and Food – offering both the spectacle of flame cooking, and of course the delicious results.”

Visitors will have access to the sculpture park and galleries. They can also stop by the Café by the Lakes that offers a seasonal menu including produce sourced from the kitchen garden, or try the new ‘build you own picnic’ bar in the Artisans’ Pantry. Dorset Garden Festival and Fire and Food Festival will also premier the Bent Copper Bar, a former horsebox transformed by Simon into a cocktail bar with a domed copper roof.

Tickets must be booked in advance. Children under 14 and dogs are sadly not permitted due to fast-flowing deep water. https://www.sculpturebythelakes.co.uk/