1 Tremenheere
Penzance, Cornwall
This 22-acre subtropical garden is planted with unbelievably rare varieties, including a fantastic display of palm trees. Be sure to go into the subterranean Skyspace, designed by the American installation artist James Turrell, and in the silence watch the clouds drift across the perfect open oval of the roof. Mystical.
Open daily 10am-5pm; adult £8, child £4.50, under-11 free; tremenheere.co.uk
2 Chelsea Physic Garden
London SW3
A few precious acres of greenery beside the Thames that you would never guess was tucked away behind high walls. It was set up in 1673 by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and offers 5,000 edible, useful and medicinal plants. It’s also home to the oldest fruiting olive tree in Britain.
Open Mon 11am-5pm, Tues to Fri and Sun 11am-6pm; adult £9.50, child £6.25, under-5 free; chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk
3 Dyffryn Fernant
Fishguard, Pembrokeshire
Beautifully conceived small gardens brimming with rich, contemporary planting surround a glowing raspberry-fool coloured house, while a bog garden subtly gives way to a wetland valley floor. The best domestic garden in Wales.
Open daily noon-6pm; adult £6, child free; dyffrynfernant.co.uk
4 Wollerton Old Hall
Market Drayton, Shropshire
If you like uproarious colours you’ll love this place, and the quality of the gardening is incredibly polished. There is clematis everywhere, as well as cool, short meadow grass and quiet topiary — and perennials as generously and colourfully displayed as you will see anywhere. It’s not huge, but is jam-packed with interest and it just gets better as the season progresses. Wollerton and Powis Castle, Welshpool, grow the best hollyhocks in Britain.
Open Thur, Fri and Sun noon-5pm; adult £7, child £1, under-5 free; wollertonoldhallgarden.com
5 Howick Hall
Alnwick, Northumberland
A fine, cool mansion overlooks herbaceous borders and a bog garden, with wildflower lawns riddled with multicoloured tulips and a collection of rhododendrons and magnolias in a woodland pocket of acid soil. For tree lovers, a collection running down to the sea includes massive old natives and young trees newly collected from all parts of the world.
Open daily 10.30am-6pm; adult £7.70, child free; howickhallgardens.org
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6 Pitmedden
Ellon, Aberdeenshire
Pitmedden resembles one of those grand and intricate French parterres of crisp box hedges and brightly coloured bedding, although this Scottish version is softened by grass paths rather than gravel. Whether or not you like the style, the craftsmanship is heart-lifting. The garden is terraced, so you can look down over old walls to see it in all its pomp.
Open daily 10am-5.30pm; adult £6.50, child free; nts.org.uk
7 York Gate
Leeds, Yorkshire
This very varied late 20th-century suburban garden is just the place to see detailed craftsmanship in paving, garden buildings and planting. You will come away full of ideas. In 1994 it was left to Perennial, the charity that helps to support retired and struggling professional gardeners.
Open Sun to Thur 12.30pm-4.30pm, every Wed in June 6.30pm-9pm; adult £5, child free; perennial.org.uk
8 Kelmarsh Hall
Northampton
Kelmarsh was the home of the society hostess Nancy Lancaster, who pioneered the idea that grand houses could actually be comfortable to live in. Cool lawns and lime allées overlook a river plain, and to one side long herbaceous borders lead to a highly colourful walled garden. Beyond is a woodland and bog garden. It is all absurdly romantic, especially the cow-filled view to the village church.
Open Sun, Tues-Thur 11am-5pm; adult £5.40, child £3.10, under-5 free; kelmarsh.com
9 Stocktonbury
Leominster, Herefordshire
You’ll leave Stocktonbury full of ideas. The garden is only 30 years old and its green-floored orchard of the same age is truly immaculate. There is also a kitchen garden, bee skeps and a large old pigeon house. Full-bodied summer planting and winding lawns lead to a little stream and pool garden with a fine vista that includes a church spire.
Open Wed-Sun, noon-5pm; adult £7, child £3, under-5 free; stocktonbury.co.uk
10 Greys Court
Henley, Oxfordshire
This 1930s country house garden is set round a smart, much older mansion. There are woodland walks, but the main interest is the walled garden, a mixture of kitchen gardening and ornamental planting. There are lots of low hedges, climbers on old walls and an ancient wisteria.
Open daily 10am-5pm (house 1pm-5pm); adult £11.25, child £5.85; nationaltrust.org.uk
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11 Old Vicarage
East Ruston, Norfolk
This is a late 20th-century garden, started from scratch only one and a half miles from the North Sea and nestled in shelter belts of pine and eucalyptus. East Ruston has it all, from the wildly exotic, to the classically formal, to a desert wash of tender succulents, and all of it perfectly executed, especially the pots. Every time I go, there’s something new.
Open Wed-Sun 1pm-5.30pm; adult £8.50, child £1, under-3 free; e-ruston-oldvicaragegardens.co.uk
12 Audley End
Near Saffron Walden, Essex
Audley End’s park was designed by Capability Brown, with the River Cam winding along in front of the house. There’s an interesting walled garden with glasshouses, but the star turn is an early 19th-century parterre behind the house, planted with mixed perennials.
Open daily 10am-6pm; adult £17.50, child £10.50, under-5 free; english-heritage.org.uk
13 Sir Harold Hillier Gardens
Romsey, Hampshire
The collection of a man most interested by trees and shrubs, but the gardens are full of striking flowering specimens at any time of year. In high summer a pair of huge parallel borders run away into the distance. They don’t make them like this any more — except here.
Open daily 10am-6pm; adult £10.40, child £2.40; under-5 free; hants.gov.uk
14 Osborne House
Isle of Wight
Queen Victoria’s seaside escape, Osborne House could easily be called a folly. It’s a white stucco Italianate monster and it has the most wonderful, over-the-top parterre. There’s also a walled garden with fine ornamental pergolas. In the pleasure grounds is Prince Albert’s wooden Swiss Cottage, the size of a family house, where the royal children had to look after their individual vegetable patches.
Open daily 10am-6pm; adult £16.20, child £9.70, under-5 free; english-heritage.org.uk
15 Athelhampton
Dorchester, Dorset
This is an 1890s garden so much grander than its accompanying 15th-century house. The 19th-century topiary is now vastly out of scale with its rose-garden origins, but its towering, narrow poolside pyramids still have the same razor-edge profiles. It feels posh, but
still it makes you smile with pleasure — I bet Oscar Wilde would have loved it. You would be mad to go to Dorset and not see it.
Open Sun-Thur 10.30am-5pm; adult £13.75, child £3; athelhampton.co.uk
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16 Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh
Bang in the middle of the city, this is a botanic garden of a manageable size. You can cherry-pick from a selection of features round its roughly circular path, including large glasshouses, some of them modern, with water gardens and a “Chinese hillside” built on a slope with paths, waterfalls and views of Edinburgh Castle.
Open daily 10am-6pm; adult £6.50, child free; rbge.org.uk
17 Eltham Palace
London SE9
An unusual, but appealing mixture: a moated Tudor exterior with silvery art deco interior. It was developed as a garden by Stephen and Virginia Courtauld in the 1930s and offers formal gardens and lawns round a fine brick house, and busier gardening in the old moat. Stand on the bridge and look down at those dreamy, daisy-studded lawns.
Open Sun-Fri 10am-6pm; adult £14.40, child £8.60, under-5 free; english-heritage.org.uk
18 Plas Cadnant
Menai Bridge, Anglesey
Anthony Tavernor has been working on this walled garden and picturesque ravine for 21 years, only to find it almost destroyed by floods a few years ago. Not deterred, he has rebuilt walls and replaced shrubs washed away down the river. Now it’s sparkling again. Woodland gardeners shouldn’t miss it — it is the place to go to learn what you can grow under tall trees.
Open Tues-Thur and Sun, noon-5pm; adult £7.50, child £2, under-6 free; plascadnantgardens.co.uk
19 Holker Hall
Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria
This chunky Victorian house commands a sloping woodland garden at the centre of which is a fountain approached by new stepped and pebble-lined rills, all under towering rhododendrons. It’s an unforgettable image. Near by is a “modern but traditional” formal garden, where you can see the gamut of summer flowers — roses, perennials, the works — set off by clipped shapes and tunnels. It feels very fresh. A small stone labyrinth stands in the park.
Open Wed-Sun 10.30am-5pm; adult £8.50, child free; holker.co.uk
20 Botanic Gardens
Belfast, Northern Ireland
If you like vast Victorian glasshouses, this is not to be missed. The domed Palm House, with its long wings, a gem of early curving ironwork, was erected between 1839 and 1852. Inside are huge palms and ferns, of course, but also great displays of colourful indoor plants of the kinds you might grow at home. Dublin’s Botanic Garden is 100 miles down the road, with a glasshouse every bit as exciting.
Open daily 7.30am-9pm; free; www.belfastcity.gov.uk
