TO CELEBRATE the Royal Horticultural Society Year of Gardening, the Armitt Gallery, Museum and Library is staging a new exhibition featuring the work of the region's best-known garden-lovers, Beatrix Potter.

Running from tomorrow (Saturday) until October 4 and staged in partnership with the National Trust, it focuses on 38 drawings and watercolours from the collections of the National Trust, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Ambleside venue's own rich collection of Beatrix's natural history watercolours.

It explores the garden theme of the author's own artwork, including studies of her own gardens, the outdoor environment from places visited on childhood holidays, and the gardens which inspired the backdrops of her children's tales.

As a young girl Beatrix Potter took a great interest in gardens, even though it was not customary at the time for women to do gardening.

She sketched flowers and described her favourite gardens in detail.

Her childhood holidays offered a great assortment of outdoor environments from Wray Castle with its lakeside vistas to the nettled gardens of Heath Park in Scotland and, after settling in the Lake District, the gardens at Hill Top Farm and Sawrey provided endless inspiration.

Highlighting Beatrix's love of the natural world and gardening, the exhibition highlights how both play an important part in her timeless tales, particularly the gardens at Hill Top and Sawrey, Fawe Park (Tale of Benjamin Bunny), Lingholm (Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, Tale of Mrs Tiggy-winkle), Lakefield and Gwaynynog in Wales (Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies).

The famous illustrations along with watercolours of her gardens and studies of fungi and mosses will be brought together in what promises to be another excellent Armitt exhibition.

For further details, contact 015394-31212.