On a Spring roll
As the floral year bursts into life, we pick the very best gardens to visit
FED UP with being cooped up indoors all winter? Then head out to visit a garden famed for its early colour. Here’s my guide to the best of Britain’s spring displays:
Cotehele, Cornwall
This garden boasts one of the finest displays of daffodils in the UK. Between March and April, the meadows surrounding the attractive Tudor manor house turn shades of yellow and white as thousands of bulbs burst into life. There are estimated to be more than 120 different varieties here. Rhododendrons, azaleas and flowering cherries provide colour in the wooded valley garden below the house.
Open daily from dawn to dusk. nationaltrust.org. uk/cotehele
Coleton Fishacre, Devon
An Arts and Crafts house built in 1926, it stands at the top of a shallow valley that runs down to Pudcombe Cove. Magnolias, camellias and rhododendrons provide colourful backdrops to grassy banks that are covered with bluebells and the white blooms of wild garlic. Look out for Chilean fire trees, whose magnificent scarlet flowers appear in May.
Open daily (except Friday), 10.30am-5pm. nationaltrust.org.uk/ coleton-fishacre
Batsford Arboretum, Gloucestershire
This hillside arboretum boasts one of the finest collections of flowering cherry trees outside Japan. There are hundreds of varieties, including the National Collection of satosakura group cherries.
Open daily, 10am-5pm. batsarb.co.uk
Exbury Gardens, Hampshire
More than 3,000 different rhododendrons pull in the crowds to this woodland garden every April and May. It’s home to many of the colourful species discovered in China by Ernest Wilson, Frank Kingdon-Ward and other plant-hunters in the early years of the 20th Century. For sheer drama, nothing compares with a 20ft-tall Rhododendron ‘Cornish Red’ close to the Palladian-style house.
Open daily from March 15, 10am-5pm. exbury.co.uk
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London
Planted within this 300-acre garden on the banks of the Thames are more than five million spring-flowering bulbs. The show gets under way in March with Dutch crocus, followed by snake’s head fritillaries, scilla, daffodils, camassia and bluebells, and ends with a cracking display of tulips. There are countless other spring attractions, notably a flowering cherry walk, azalea garden and a rhododendron dell
Open daily, 9.30am-5.30pm. kew.org
Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden, Norfolk
Streams, dykes and creeks crisscross this 170-acre woodland garden in the heart of the Norfolk Broads. From early spring, the damp soil is transformed by swathes of daffodils, wild primroses, bluebells, rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and candelabra primroses.
Open daily, 10am-5pm. fairhavengarden.co.uk
Calke Abbey, Derbyshire
This garden is famous for its magnificent display of auricula primroses. More than 200 of these gems are arranged in clay pots on the shelves of Calke’s auricula theatre during April and May. Elsewhere, there are flower beds filled with wallflowers and tulips, along with swathes of daffodils and bluebells.
Open daily, 10am-5pm. nationaltrust.org.uk/calke-abbey
Wentworth Castle Gardens, South Yorkshire
Camellias, magnolias and more than 300 different rhododendrons underplanted with spring perennials and bulbs provide a succession of colour from early March until the beginning of summer in this sprawling garden.
Open daily, 11am-3pm (Mon to Fri), 10am-4pm (Sat, Sun). wentworthcastle.org.uk
Bodnant Gardens, Wales
An 80-acre paradise in the foothills of the Snowdon range, Bodnant is famed for its rhododendrons, camellias and magnolias. The gardens were developed largely from 1902 to 1953. Don’t miss the Laburnum Arch – a 176ft tunnel of cascading yellow flowers at its peak in May.
Open daily, 10am-5pm. nationaltrust.org.uk/ bodnant-garden
Glendoick, Scotland
A sprawling garden on the south- ern slopes of the Sidlaw Hills in Perthshire, Glendoick has one of the UK’s best collections of rhododendrons. Five National Collections of these plants are spread across its ten acres, including the Cox hybrids – named after the family of horticulturists who started the garden in 1919 and still run it. Many plants are displayed on sloping land bisected by a fast-flowing stream that crashes over several waterfalls.
Open April 1 to May 31, 10am-4pm (Mon to Fri), 2pm-5pm (weekends). glendoick.com