Follow your nose to Bath's Prior Park, where displays of wild garlic will assault your senses

T here's so much wild garlic growing at Prior Park in Bath, the National Trust is holding a celebration in its honour and encouraging visitors to pick it.

A plant with more leaf than flower and a pungent aroma may not be an immediate threat to bluebells and daffodils in the popularity stakes, but at Prior Park it is very impressive.

Not only is its sight and scent are present on a mass scale, but as it's prolific in deciduous woodlands, it's an ideal plant to learn about the joys of foraging.

"Every part of the wild garlic, or ramsons, as they're also known, can be eaten," says Matthew Ward, Prior Park's head gardener.

"The white star-like flowers can be added to salads or even frozen in ice-cubes to add a distinctive taste to summer drinks.

"However, it's the leaves which are the most popular part to be used and taste similar to garlic chives, although the flavour softens slightly when cooked."

Wild garlic leaves can be chopped to replace garlic in recipes such as pesto, aioli, soups and pasta and in Prior Park's popular wild garlic and cheese scones, which are among the flavours served on-site during the park's garlic days. Of course, as well as the stunning wild garlic displays, Prior Park's magnificent gardens have plenty more to offer visitors.

Last month, a stunning secret grotto inspired by the legendary poet Alexander Pope was discovered, whish is soon to be restored to its former glory.

The grotto will be the final piece of the restoration jigsaw that the National Trust began in 1993, when it acquired the Grade I-listed garden.

The aim of that restoration was to reinstate the garden to what it would have been like in 1764, the year of it's architect Ralph Allen's death, with the help of local experts and volunteers.

So far, the 15-year project has seen excavation of the Serpentine Lake, which had been filled in during the 19th century, leaving a small pond.

New paths through the Wilderness have also been cut, allowing visitors access to new areas of the garden and beds containing plants popular in the 18th century are developing nicely.

Wild About Garlic runs until next Saturday, May 16. Prior Park is open daily (except Tuesdays) between 11am and 4.30pm. For information about the 18th-century garden and reaching it by public transport, please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/priorpark