Gower AONB · Moderate pressure
Bishopston, Pennard & South Gower villages
Narrow lanes with high banks act as corridors. Most new outbreaks here start with garden waste tipped over a bank or on a lay-by.
Streets and places to watch
- Bishopston Road
- Pennard Road
- Southgate
- Parkmill
- Oxwich
- Port Eynon
These are the corridors where growth is most often recorded — lane walls, verges, brook banks and cleared plots. Individual gardens are not listed.
Towns, villages and places in this area
Each place has its own local guide with a map, area facts and the plants to watch for.
What grows here
Montbretia
The orange garden crocosmia that has escaped into hedge banks and coastal paths all over Gower, forming solid corm mats that nothing else grows through.
Foliage spring, orange flowers July–September
Three-cornered leek
Sometimes picked as wild garlic. It carpets shady verges, churchyards and hedge banks across west Swansea and Gower, replacing native bluebells and celandines.
Leaves from December, flowers March–May, dormant in summer
Himalayan balsam
The pink-flowered annual that lines almost every stream in Swansea. One plant throws up to 2,500 seeds and the seed floats, so a single upstream patch reseeds miles of bank.
Germinates March, flowers June–October, dies back with first frost