THREE BOTANIC GARDENS TO VISIT THIS AUTUMN

The russet hues, ripening apples and re-blooming azaleas of autumn make it an excellent time to take a trip to your local botanical garden. Here’s our pick of Britain’s best to visit this month – cameras at the ready

1 Benmore Botanic Garden On Scotland’s west coast, surrounded by lochs, lies this extensive garden housing a restored 142-square-metre Victorian fernery, waterfall, ponds and a towering avenue of evergreen giant sequioa and redwood trees. Horticultural highlight in autumn? The witch hazel turning yellow-gold and cotoneaster shrubs laden with new red berries (rbge.org.uk).

2 Cambridge University Botanic Garden Apple Day on 22 October gives visitors a chance to taste, harvest and learn how to cultivate the fruit. Plus, October sees the American sweetgum trees and acer shrubs turn crimson and the smoke bush segue from orange to pink to claret. Autumn crocuses also pop up, while lofty pampas grasses shelter sedum flowers in the dedicated ‘autumn garden’ ( botanic.cam.ac.uk).

3 Ventnor Botanic Garden Britain’s hottest botanical garden – thanks to its southerly position on the Isle of Wight – has a subtropical climate. This means that, up until the end of October, you can find spiky purple echinops, dahlias and white agapanthus in full throttle, rhododendrons galore and bees buzzing around the lavender. Plus: sprouting mushrooms, funghi and toadstools in every shape and size ( botanic.co.uk).