Great Comp, Kent
As featured on the Country Life website last week, this gem of a garden just outside the M25 is beautiful all year round, but all the more so in spring.
Leonardslee, West Sussex
The Loderi Garden — like Great Comp, also featured recently in Country Life — has the world’s most complete collection of Loderi hybrid rhododendrons, bred by Leonardslee’s former owner, Sir Edmund Loder, from 1901. Some plants in the collection are more than 100 years old.
Ramster Gardens, Surrey
Rhododendrons were a passion of the Hon Florence Priscilla McLaren, known as Lady Norman, who lived at Ramster from 1922. Many of the large rhododendrons were planted in the 1920s and 1930s, some with russet trunks now stretching to 20ft in height.
Sheringham Park, Norfolk
The gardens of Sheringham Hall, Norfolk.
The 50-acre Wild Garden at Sheringham is home to a nationally important collection of rhododendrons. The ‘carpet of colour’ can be admired from two viewing platforms, but gargantuan lemon-coloured rhododendron macabeanum, tucked away from the path network, are well worth a diversion.
Trewithen Gardens, Cornwall
A traditional Cornish woodland garden with a strong bias toward spring flowering plants, many of plant hunter origin. Rhododendrons, interspersed with Asiatic magnolias, flank the huge serpentine lawn and signal the arrival of spring, best between February and July.
Scotney Castle, Kent
When spring arrives, the Main Lawns and Lime Walk are swamped by their mauve-pink blooms. A sea of rhododendrons flood the sloping valley, cascading from Dell Garden down to the moat, where ruins of the 14th-century castle emerge from below.
Glendoick Gardens, Scotland
The rhododendron nursery was established in 1953, filled with seeds of wild species collected on plant-hunting expeditions. Today, it is the site of a project to create hybrid species that will withstand rising temperatures.
Exbury Gardens, Hampshire
This rhododendron haven was begun by Lionel de Rothschild in 1919. Three generations, thousands of bulbs, and more than 1,000 hybrids later, the collection is world-famous, at its best in May.
Borde Hill, Haywards Heath
With a legacy that includes the first Chinese rhododendrons to be introduced to Britain, flowers from seeds collected by 19th-century plant hunters, and the place where Col. Stephenson Robert Clarke began his rhododendron collection in earnest, The Old Rhododendron Garden promises a bounty of history and blooms.
Bowood Garden, Wiltshire
The Woodland Garden, laid out by the 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne in 1854 and open for six weeks during the flowering season (mid-April to early June), is home to hundreds of rare and hybrid rhododendron species, with two miles of meandering paths to enjoy them.
RHS Garden Rosemoor, Devon
Good throughout the season, but head for the National Rhododendron Show (April 26-27) and you'll see exhibitors from all of the south and west of England gather for a special event, showcasing magnificent displays and a programme of classes, trade and advice stands, and competitions. Entry included in garden admission, from £14.50.
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This blissful converted mill has sweeping views, a breathtaking library and gardens by a Chelsea gold medallistPenny Churchill takes a look at Stanbridge Mill, one of the finest properties for sale today in the west country.
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The smooth collie: A working breed with beauty and brainsOnce the go-to Scottish herding dog, the smooth collie is as elegant as it is dependable — a working breed with beauty and brains.
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Blurring the lines between ornament and recreation: Nine of Britain’s best Arts-and-Crafts swimming pondsBefore the vogue for bright blue, chlorine-treated swimming pools, members of Victorian and Edwardian society built naturalistic bathing ponds inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement.
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Ballynure House: The magical estate that transformed its bramble-covered historic garden into a pollinator paradiseWhere brambles once engulfed the historic gardens at Ballynure House in Co Wicklow, Ireland — home of Clare Reid Scott — colourful flower borders now hum with pollinators. Photographs by Jonathan Hession.
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Defanging the Gardens Trust will hurt our most precious landscapesThe Government has proposed to remove the Garden Trust's position as a statutory consultee in planning permissions for up to 1,700 historic landscapes and gardens in order to speed up building.
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‘I was rather excited, not remotely daunted... With hindsight, I should have been': The 25-year creation of the gardens of Glenarm CastlePay a visit to the gardens at Glenarm Castle in Co Antrim — home of Randal and Aurora McDonnell — is hard to credit that nearly all of the present garden was made this century, marvels Kathryn Bradley-Hole. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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The pinnacle of the English style of gardening, as fine today as it was a century agoCharles Quest-Ritson has just returned to Great Dixter for the first time in years — and it's 'the high point of all my garden visiting for a long time. I cannot recommend it too highly'.
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The curious incident of the vanishing glasshouses: Country Life's photographs are all that remains of these awe-inspiring structuresThe ‘winter garden’ and the ‘terraced grounds of exquisite beauty’ were two of Cherkley Court’s featured attractions. They were advertised for sale in Country Life in 1910 — and then they vanished.
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Eat up your daylilies: The underappreciated east Asian flower that's a marvel in the kitchenMark Diacono was at first suspicious of cutting the stem of a gorgeous red daylily, until he realised how delicious they are.
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'Knoll offers a masterclass in the adaptability of grass': The Dorset garden that went from tourist attraction to specialist nurseryTilly Ware visits Knoll Gardens in Dorset, which offers a masterclass in grasses and how to make your garden stay beautiful for longer.
