Around the world in 12 garden beds: Leicester’s international food garden flourishes
Botanic Garden Director Nick Bailey
The University of Leicester’s World Food Garden has been in full bloom over the past four months.
Planted in May at the University’s Botanic Garden, in Oadby, the garden is divided into 12 areas covering 10 regions of the globe from Africa, Caribbean, North and South Asia, Europe, North and South America to Japan, Middle East and Indian subcontinent.
Plants in each area reflect the vegetation typically found in those places and include ginger, watermelon, Szechuan pepper, chilli, chickpeas, aubergine, beetroot, lemongrass, cardamom, okra, pomegranate, cucumber and many more.
Nick Bailey, Garden Director and BBC Gardener’s’ World presenter, explained: “Our aim in planting this garden was to reflect the diversity of Leicester, like many of our other projects here, as well as to expand the botanic and teaching remit of the garden.
“We’re literally covered the entire world and this includes the wonderful sugar cane plant and yams which of course world champion runner Usain Bolt credited with helping him to victory, having eaten it for many years.
“There are fantastic and unusual plants to discover and we know visitors might be astounded to find out where each of them originated, so why not come down to the Botanic Garden for a day out and see, not just what the World Food Garden has to offer, but all the other sights and sounds here. It really is a space of beauty and tranquillity in an otherwise urban area.”
In March the garden had a mesmerising crocus display to celebrate the city’s rich cultural heritage following the planting of around 40,000 crocus bulbs in the shape of a paisley motif covering roughly the size of two tennis courts.
The paisley pattern was chosen due to its connections with India, and Leicester’s with the subcontinent – with around a third of the city’s population being of Indian ethnic heritage.
The garden is open from 10am until 4pm seven days a week.