Acorn Bank Garden & Water Mill (NT) Temple Sowerby, nr. Penrith, Cumbria.

Photo © 2007 NTPL / Stephen Robson

A one hectare garden protected by fine oaks under which grow a vast display of daffodils. Inside the walls there are orchards growing old English fruit varieties, surrounded by mixed borders with shrubs, herbaceous plants and roses, while the impressive herb garden has the largest collection of culinary and medicinal plants in the north.Renowned for its orchards growing old English fruit varieties

Arley Hall and Gardens Northwich, Cheshire.

Photo © 2006 Arley Hall and Gardens

Within its eight acres of formal gardens, SW of the house, are many different areas, each with its own distincitve character. Arley Hall gardens were largely laid out in the 1840s, but every generation has added something since. There is a Victorian Double Herbaceous Border about 100 yards long, the only avenue in England of Ilex clipped in the shape of giant cylinders, a Lime Avenue and ancient Yew hedges, Roses, Herbs and Woodland Gardens. This last is notable for a collection of over 200 Rhododendrons, mostly planted in the recent past.

Bridgemere Nurseries nr. Nantwich Cheshire.

The Garden Kingdom - Britain's largest garden centre with 22 gardens showing many different styles and plantings. More than six acres of garden designed to explore what works best for all conditions and styles of garden.

Chester Zoo Garden nr. Chester, Cheshire.

Photo © 2007 Chester Zoo

The gardens of the Zoo are justly famous, winning many awards over the years. The last few years has seen the creation of a large number of new garden features. These include Glorious Grasses, Roman Garden, The Andes, Wildlife Garden, V.I.P. (Very Important Plant) border, Sub-tropical garden and Rock Garden. Visitors can also go into the Grow Zone greenhouses to look at our orchid, cacti, tropical and carnivorous plant displays.

All around the Zoo we are looking at appropriate planting schemes to enhance our animal enclosures. We are working closely with the keepers to produce natural looking environments for our animals. Elephants of the Asian Forest, Spirit of the Jaguar, Islands in Danger and the Tropical Realm are excellent examples. Plant conservation is vitally important and we are increasing the number of rare plants and trees in our collection. These include both UK natives and exotics. We have part of the National Collection of Pleurothallidinae orchids and are applying for National Collection status for our Matucana, Copiapoa and Turbinocarpus cacti collections.

Whatever the time of year there is always something to enjoy in the gardens from the colourful bedding displays, themed garden exhibits to the naturalistic animal enclosures.

Cholmondeley Castle Gardens Malpas, Cheshire.

Photo © Shropshire Tourism

The gardens at Cholmondeley Castle were originally laid out when the 1st Marquess of Cholmondeley built the castle between 1801 and 1804. Located off the A49 Whitchurch to Tarporley road, the gardens have been extensively replanted since the 1960's under the direction of Lady Cholmondeley. Fine azaleas, rhododendrons, flowering shrubs, rare trees and herbaceous borders.

The gardens and grounds feature many beautiful specimen trees, herbaceous borders, shrubberies, ponds and lakes with the highlight being the beautiful Temple Garden. Careful planting has ensured it is a garden for all seasons to enjoy throughout the year, with a wealth of plants, shrubs and bulbs. The grounds also contain a nature reserve and a rare breeds animal centre complete with children's corner. Visitor facilities include a tearoom, picnic area, gift and plant shop and a farm shop located just outside the main Castle entrance.

Cobble Hey Gardens Off Hobbs Lane, Claughton on Brock, Garstang, Lancaster. Lancashire

Photo © 2007 Cobble Hey Farm & Gardens

Cobble Hey has been a working hill farm for more than 150 years and still raises a wide range of sheep and beef cattle breeds. Set in a delightful location, 600 feet above sea level with stunning views over the Forest of Bowland, the farm has always been a rural beauty spot, but the past 10 years have seen a transformation as Edwina Miller has lavished her attentions on the extensive gardens adjacent to the farmhouse. This labour of love was too good to keep to themselves, and the Millers opened the gardens to the public in 2002. Since then, thousands have visited the farm and been able to share in its beauty and tranquillity. It has also been featured in Lancashire Life and Farmers Guardian.

The gardens are based on this working farm. Composed of many cottage garden themed areas, it includes a seaside area based on a wide range of grasses. A woodland bed based on Hellebore, galanthus, digitalis & meconopsis. Small parterre made up of clipped box hedging and a spiral centre. Rockery made up of many alpines. Conifer bed designed by Adrian Bloom (Blooms of Bressingham). Mature woodland with wild flower and grasses area. Stumpery with a large selection of ferns. Woodland walk area with a wide range of plants. A series of three ponds, spring fed, which run through the garden linked by a rill, small stream and shallow stream all bordered with appropriate planting, candalabra primulas etc. Laburnum arch, rose & clematis pergola.

The new area of garden is colour themed and consists of six separate gardens. The gardens are home to a wide range of unusual plants sourced from all over the world. The gardens also have strong links with Wisley and Catforth Gardens (recently closed down) from where we took the National Collection of Hardy Geraniums. We are in the process of setting up a National Collection for Phlox paniculata, hellebore, astrantia, and galanthus. Featured in the Plant Finder 2004-5.

Plant lovers can also purchase a wide range of specialist plants from the farm’s nursery. The Millers have also worked in conjunction with Countryside Rangers and the RSPB to establish farm walks and information boards to make your experience of this delightful rural setting and important wetland bird habitat even more pleasurable.

Open 1st February to 24th December from Thursday until Monday 10.30 a.m.- 4.30 p.m. Open gardens, unusual plants for sale, tea rooms, gift shop, play ground working farm, Lapwing walk Private bookings welcome. Contact for further information.

Dunham Massey (NT) Altrincham, Cheshire.

Photo © 2007 NTPL / Nick Meers

Georgian house with Edwardian additions set in a 250 acre wooded park, a rare survivor of 18th century formal design. The park also has an ancient herd of fallow deer. The richly planted garden contains an 18th century orangery, a Victorian bark house and well house; all set amongst mixed shrubs, herbaceous borders, mature trees and waterside plantings. There is also a collection of unique late-flowering azaleas.

Fletcher Moss Botanical Gardens Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester.

Photo © 2007 The Civic Trust

The park, acquired as a gift from Alderman Fletcher Moss in 1914, has 21 acres of gardens and woodland renowned for their botanical beauty. The botanical gardens feature an interesting rock garden, with many uncommon alpines, bulbs, screes and marginal plants situated around the natural pond and water features. There was also an orchid house, now sadly derelict.

Graythwaite Hall Gardens Graythwaite, Ulverston, Cumbria.

Photo © 2007 Graythwaite Hall

About 6 acres of garden landscaped by Thomas Mawson. A spring garden settled in a wooded valley of twelve acres exhibiting an extensive collection of rhododendrons and azaleas. It is much as Mawson finished it although the modern era now offers a greater selection of hybrids and species.

The Dutch Garden and Rose Garden are typical of the period and visitors can explore the paths through lawns and woodland to gain contrasting views of their surroundings. Towering above are some impressive trees, now giants sheltering smaller ornamentals and the Dogs cemetary and arboretum are havens of peace.

Halecat Garden Nurseries Witherslack, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria.

A 19th century house with garden created 40 years ago with fine views over the valley. The garden is mainly herbaceous but is imaginatively planted with interesting trees, shrubs and climbers on different levels. Includes an octagonal gazebo designed by F F Johnson. A nursery garden with 70 varieties of hydrangeas.

Hare Hill (NT) Over Alderley, Cheshire.

Photo © 2007 The National Trust

Attractive 10 acre garden includes a walled garden with many clematis and vines on its walls. An attractive Spring garden with a fine display of rhododendrons and azaleas. A good collection of hollies and other specimen trees and shrubs.

Holehird Windermere, Cumbria.

Photo © The Lakeland Horticultural Society

The garden of 10 acres is set on the hillside with magnificent views. It has a great diversity of plants that grow well in this area including alpine and heather beds and a collection of Azaleas and Rhododendrons. The walled garden has excellent herbaceous displays and contains the National Collections of Astilbes, Polystichum ferns and Hydrangeas.

Holker Hall & Gardens Cark-in-Cartmel, nr. Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria.

Photo © Cumbria Life and Lake District Magazine

Immaculately kept Gardens (25 acres in all) are part woodland, part formal and essentially Victorian in character. National award-winning gardens classed by some as "amongst the best in the world...". Exotic trees and shrubs. Also a beech and oak walk with rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and camelias. Summer garden, rose garden and elliptical garden. Water features and limestone cascade. National Collection of Styracaceae (incl Halesia, Pterostyrax, Styrax, Sinojackia). See also the Visit Cumbria web site.

Levens Hall Levens, Milnthorpe, Cumbria.

A 10 acre garden including a splendid collection of topiary, a magnificent beech circle, formal bedding and herbaceous borders.

Lyme Park (NT) nr. Disley, Stockport, Cheshire.

Photo © 2007 National Trust / Philip Burt

A 17 acre garden retaining many original features from Jacobean and Tudor times. High Victorian style bedding, a Dutch garden, a Gertrude Jekyll-style herbaceous border, an orangery, an Edwardian rose garden, rare trees, Jekyll-style herbaceous borders, a ravine garden and Wyatt conservatory and wild flowers by the lake. The garden is surrounded by a medieval deer park, with herds of red and fallow deer, covering almost 1,400 acres of moorland, woodland and parkland and containing an early 18th-century hunting tower (The Cage.)

Muncaster Castle Ravenglass Cumbria.

Photo © Muncaster Castle

Described as the ‘Gateway to Paradise’ by John Ruskin, Muncaster gardens offer over 70 acres of wild beauty.

The spectacular views of the Lakeland Fells act as backdrop to the rare and unusual plants in the rugged Himalayan Garden, the yew pillars on the Georgian Terrace Walk and the delightful charms of Church Wood, home to a colourful collection of Japanese maples. The landscaped areas, first planted in the 1780’s, are contrasted by the wild woods, home to hundreds of rhododendrons both species and hybrids.

The Victorian Kitchen Garden, recently renovated, hosts a traditional vegetable garden, a carefully researched herb and physic garden and a Plant Centre as well as some aviaries of the famous World Owl Centre. Our propagation programme enables preservation of the plant collection by regeneration from original stock and gives visitors the chance to purchase some of Muncaster’s more unusual species.

Ness Botanic Gardens nr. Chester, Cheshire.

Photo © The University of Liverpool

Ness Botanic Gardens (University of Liverpool) was born of one man's passionate interest in plants and his desire to share that interest with others. Liverpool cotton merchant Arthur Kilpin Bulley began to create a garden in 1898, part of which he opened to local residents, he laid the foundations of one of the major botanic gardens in the United Kingdom. Bulley was interested in introducing new plant species from abroad. In particular, he believed that Himalayan and Chinese mountain plants could be established in Britain. In order to test this theory, he sponsored expeditions to the Far East and in doing so launched the careers of the renowned British plant collectors George Forrest and Frank Kingdon Ward.

In this way Bulley was responsible for introducing hundreds of new plants to Britain. Two species introduced by Forrest, Rhododendron griersonianum and Camellia saluenensis, have both been used in hybridisation programmes resulting in many hybrids common in Britain today. The garden contains many mature species from the Far East. National Collection of Sorbus.

Norton Priory Gardens Tudor Road, Manor Park, Runcorn, Cheshire.

Photo © Norton Priory Museum & Gardens 2007

Extending to sixteen acres these gardens include Georgian summerhouses, rock garden and stream, a 1760s three acre walled garden, rose garden, colourful borders, herb and kitchen garden. The 2.5 acre Walled Garden was built between 1757 and 1770 for the Brooke family, the owners of Norton Priory. When the Brookes left Norton Priory, it became neglected and overgrown, until work began in 1980 by Runcorn Development Corporation to reclaim it.

The Walled Garden has been recreated as a typical Georgian Walled Garden. It was essentially a kitchen garden, and would have been the source of fruit, vegetables and flowers for the mansion house. Today there is an orchard, a fruit garden, a vegetable garden, various ornamental borders and the beautiful Rose Walk.

The Walled Garden is also the location of a number of Norton Priory’s ‘hidden gems’, including the Ha Ha Wall, the Ice House and the Wildflower Meadow. National Collection of Cydonia oblonga.

Rydal Mount Gardens Rydal, nr Ambleside,Cumbria.

Photo © Alex Black & Tatsuo Kotaki

Extensive garden landscaped by William Wordsworth, with terraces, rare shrubs and magnificent views.

All the Wordsworth family were keen gardeners and William had strong views about how a garden should look. In particular he believed that a garden should be informal and that it should harmonise with the countryside consisting of ‘lawn, and trees carefully planted so as not to obscure the view’. Every owner of Rydal Mount has been a keen gardener, but other than the planting of some late-Victorian plants the garden remains little changed since Wordsworth’s day.

Sizergh Castle (NT) Sizergh, nr. Kendal, Cumbria.

Photo © 2007 NTPL / Alasdair Ogilvie

The castle is surrounded by gardens of beauty and interest; good autumn colour. Of particular interest are the two lakes and a superb rock garden. All this is set in a 1,600-acre estate crossed by public footpaths, providing short circular walks from the castle to dramatic viewpoints over Morecambe Bay and the Lake District fells. National Collections of Asplenium scolopendrium, Cystopteris, Dryopteris and Osmunda.

Stapeley Water Gardens nr. Nantwich, Cheshire.

Photo © Stapeley Water Gardens

Stapeley Water Gardens has been internationally recognised as a leader in the field of water gardening with display pool and gardens, a large angling centre, pet and aquatic sections. There is also the Palms Tropical Oasis, a large glass pavilion with exotic animals, plants, fish and birds. This garden also holds the National Collection of Nymphaea.

Stagshaw Garden (NT) Ambleside, Cumbria.

Photo © 2007 NTPL / Stephen Robson

This woodland garden was created by the late Cubby Acland, Regional Agent for the National Trust. It is on a steep slope overlooking Lake Windermere and contains a fine collection of azaleas and rhododendrons, planted under the thinned oaks on the hillside. Other plants of interest include camellias, magnolias, embothriums and spring bulbs.

Tatton Park (NT) Knutsford, Cheshire.

Photo © 2007 NTPL / Stephen Robson

The 20 hectare garden contains an authentic Japanese garden, Italian garden, orangery, fernery, rose garden and pinetum. Fabulous lakeside and woodland paths in the 1,000acre deer park and special interest walks. Other features include the Tudor old hall, a 1930s working rare breeds farm, a children's play area and speciality shops. National Collection of Adiantum.

How to Purchase 1. Click on the Book you want - opening a new Amazon window. 2. Buy via Amazon's secure system. 3. Close the Amazon window to return here.
Wordsworth's Gardens Carole Buchanan	BBC Radio 4's "Gardeners' Question Time": All Your Gardening Problems Solved Pippa Greenwood	Hudson's Historic Houses and Gardens