Gardens in the UK are not just about the Chelsea Flower Show – not to mention the fact it's almost impossible to get a ticket – so we thought we'd tell you about some of our favourite gardens around the country: all of them easily the match of what you might see at Chelsea.
Compton Acres
These gardens spread across a beautiful hillside site above Poole Harbour, and have not only a great variety, including a magnificent Japanese Garden, but have the added the bonus of panoramic sea views too.
East Ruston Vicarage Garden
Created out of nothing in the 1970s, on a rather unpromising stretch of land near the northeast Norfolk coast, this place is everything should be – calming, inventive, and so cleverly planned that it easily swallows the visitors who come here. Endlessly varied, it's like walking around in someone's horticultural imagination.
Fairhaven Water Garden
This wonderful and evocative mix of swampy woodland, dykes and creeks is a brilliant taster of the Norfolk Broads landscape of which it forms a part – plus it runs down to the banks of beautiful South Walsham Broad, on which you can take boat and canoe trips. Lovingly tended and with lots of healthy plants for sale too.
Hidcote Manor Gardens
A collection of 'garden rooms' set around a Tudor manor house – the turn-of-the-century creation of garden designer Lawrence Johnston. Fabulous borders, an outdoor theatre, and waterlilies to rival those at Giverny in Gloucestershire.
Glendurgan Gardens
This sub-tropical garden can feel like you've left England altogether, so lush are its three valleys, which tumble down to the edge of the Helford river in Falmouth. It's playful too: get lost in the maze and get the kids dizzy on the Giant's Stride.
Lost Gardens of Heligan
They're rather famous now, but the 'lost' gardens of Heligan in Cornwall were only rediscovered in the 1990s, having fallen into disrepair after two centuries of care and planting. Wonderful variety, from kitchen gardens to a sub-tropical jungle and Victorian Pleasure Grounds. A whole day out, no question.
Millgate House Garden
This diminutive private garden in North Yorkshire is actually the garden of a lovely B&B, whose owners have spent three decades bringing this Georgian walled garden back to life. Even if you're not staying, they invite visitors in during spring and summer to view their superb roses, clematis and other shrubs, and sitting among their scented arbours it's hard to believe you're bang in the centre of the Yorkshire market town of Richmond.
National Botanic Garden of Wales
Perhaps the newest garden here, created just over a decade ago for the Millennium celebrations, but what a place it is! Their collection of sub-tropical plants is the finest in Europe, and the building they're grown in – the gigantic Great Glasshouse – is the world's largest. But that's not all: there are native Welsh plants and trees, wonderful woodlands, Japanese gardens, regular events for both adults and kids, and much more. A sumptuous day out.
Check out more of our favourite gardens here!
