The best National Trust gardens to visit for spring flowers

Some countries have a fleeting spring, summer heat quickly taking over from the winter freeze. But here we have a long, slow build-up. So although there might be lots to do in your own garden, there is also time to go out and take a deeper draught. In the National Trust’s gardens and woodlands, with their acres of bulbs and blossom, there is the opportunity for full-scale immersion – and invariably a planting idea to bring back, too. Here are 15 to visit for inspiring and uplifting displays of spring flowers. 

Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire

Nothing is done by halves at Anglesey Abbey. Avenues, plantations, statuary and flower displays in this 20th-century garden are all eye-poppingly lavish. The massed cherry trees create clouds of blossom. Spring bulbs are planted literally by the ton, with bluebells, snowflakes and scented pheasant-eye daffodils creating swathes of white and blue along the grass walks and under the trees. In the formal gardens, usually just two varieties of tulip or hyacinth are chosen, but they are bedded out by the thousand.

Bodnant, North Wales

This scenic garden, covering some 80 acres, contains one of the world’s richest collections of woodland plants. The view across the Victorian terraces and lily pools to the Snowdonia mountain range is little short of epic, and beyond is a river valley speared by giant conifers. Both the formal walks and the banks of the dell are thickly clad in camellias and rhododendrons (many of which were raised here), giving a panoply of spring colour. Tree magnolias add their huge waterlily blooms early in the season, and at Easter the Old Park is flushed yellow with daffodils.

Cliveden, Buckinghamshire

Below the Italianate house, the ground plunges through beechwoods down to the Thames. In the late 17th century, a large area was levelled to create a platform of lawn, and in the 1850s this was decorated with wedge-shaped beds in which the head gardener at the time, John Fleming, pioneered the practice of “spring bedding” – planting bulbs and other plants in the autumn to create a spring display in advance of the annuals and tender exotics of summer (previously, gardeners just used evergreen bushes). His schemes, rekindled by the Trust, feature ever-changing mixes of tulips, forget-me-nots, pansies and much else – some 30,000 plants in total.

Cotehele, Cornwall

The old walls of the low-lying buildings, and the handsome domed dovecote silhouetted against the Tamar Valley, make an atmospheric setting for this garden. Camellias, rhododendrons, magnolias and other flowering shrubs create a lively spring scene, but they are domesticated by the abundance of wildflowers, fruit trees and meadow. Generous drifts of daffodils and a large collection of apple trees (a Mother Orchard was planted with 300 trees and 125 traditional varieties in the winter of 2007-8) reflect Cornwall’s long history of horticultural commerce.

Dyffryn, South Wales

This early-20th-century garden, once referred to as the Welsh Hidcote, is currently in the process of restoration. Designed by Thomas Mawson and his knowledgeable client Reginald Cory, it is a large and varied composition packed with botanical and architectural incident. Sheets of daffodils and blue chionodoxa border the grass paths of the 22-acre arboretum, which features groupings of thorn trees, paperbark maples and a fine Magnolia x veitchii sporting pink-flushed white flowers in spring. Tulips, crown imperials and other bulbs join the cast in the beds and containers of the terraces and numerous outdoor rooms which flow down the western side of the garden below the compartmented greenhouse with its vines, cacti and tropical orchids.

Emmetts, Kent

The views from this Victorian garden, perched high above the Kentish Weald, are panoramic, and the varied grounds have plenty of spring action. Lawns are carpeted in native daffodils, the cherry orchard is planted with some 5,000 red, pink and purple tulips, and the limestone rock garden sports alpine plants and early bulbs. A network of paths snakes through the estate woodlands, which stage a spectacular show of bluebells.

Erddig, North Wales

Adjoining the Georgian house is a walled garden in the formal Dutch style, with a central canal and a crisp pattern of fruit trees, pleached limes and Portugal laurels in Versailles tubs. The fruit trees, both free-standing and espaliered on the walls, include some 200 varieties of apple, as well as pears and plums, so blossom time is a high point. Daffodils accompany them – pheasant’s eye narcissus in the orchard, wild Welsh daffodils on the banks of the canal, and in the borders a number of pre-1914 varieties. Among the yew domes and mossy fountains of the parterre there is also a lively display of tulips and spring bedding.

Glendurgan, Cornwall

It is a rarified world here on Cornwall’s south coast, and this wooded, stream-fed valley rolling down to the Helford estuary provides an exceptionally mild microclimate. The tender Southern-hemisphere conifers, half-hardy scented rhododendrons, self-sowing myrtles and luxuriant tree ferns have every plantsman drooling. Spring sees an eruption of colour from camellias (massed in a camellia walk), arboreal rhododendrons, magnolias and cherries, while primroses, violets and bluebells spangle the ground in typical Cornish profusion. During the circuit tour there is the challenge of navigating the Victorian maze, three quarters of a mile in length.

Greys Court, Oxfordshire

Flint walls, cobble paths and old stone fountains create an atmospheric series of enclosures to accompany this Tudor house. In one, you walk through a tunnel of pink and white cherry blossom, while in the kitchen garden and orchard you meet an avenue of ‘Ballerina’ apples, among many other flowering fruit trees. An assortment of bulbs grow through the grass, and the adjoining Chiltern woods are carpeted in bluebells. In late spring, the wisteria is a sight to see – a vast, gnarled and twisted apparition, supported by an arbour and known as “the Beast”.

Knightshayes, Devon

Partnering Knightshayes’ potently Victorian architecture, including fairytale tower and turreted walled garden, are some 25 acres of walks and glades known as the Garden in the Wood. Developed gradually from the early 1950s (an area about the size of a tennis court was absorbed annually), this presents a series of thoughtfully designed associations of trees, flowering shrubs, bulbs and perennials. Magnolias are an early highlight, joined by the electric yellows of mahonias and euphorbias, the unfurling fronds of numerous ferns, and sheets of wood anemones, violets, scillas and cyclamen.

Lanhydrock, Cornwall

The granite house, parkland, church and obelisk-capped gatehouse make a handsome composition, further enhanced by a rising backdrop of wooded slopes. In spring these are studded with colour from magnolias, thickets of camellias and enormous stands of arboreal rhododendrons. Winding paths lead you through the extensive collection, and on into bluebell woods. The river of white poet’s narcissus is a memorable feature. Beside the house there is contrasting formality, with a box-edged parterre traditionally filled with vibrant blocks of tulips and forget-me–nots.

Nymans, Sussex

Magnolias feature prominently in the lawns and wooded fringes surrounding the romantic ruins of the manor house (destroyed by a fire in 1947); indeed, one of the most widely grown garden varieties, lilac-pink ‘Leonard Messel’, was bred here. Woven into the hillocks and dells above the croquet lawn are a restored Rock Garden, extensive beds of heathers and dwarf rhododendrons, and a collection of Kurume azaleas collected in Japan by the plant hunter Ernest Wilson a century ago (“Wilson’s Fifty” they were known as, though Nymans has only tracked down about 30 so far). Late in spring, the long wisteria pergola comes into bloom, the Japanese mood fuelled further by stone lanterns acquired from the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910.

Sheringham, Norfolk

The undulating parkland of this coastal estate was shaped by the great landscape gardener Humphry Repton, who composed one of his famous Red Books of proposals, watercolours, and before-and-after overlays in 1812. The spring spectacular, however, arrived later, with successive owners planting a large rhododendron collection in the woods flanking the approach drive. This now spans 50 acres, and since many of the plants are now enormous, closely-packed and hard to appreciate from below, there are two viewing towers from which to enjoy them. The colour builds through the spring season leading to a May climax, when the family used to hold champagne parties in celebration.

Trelissick, Cornwall

It is fun to reach Trelissick via the King Harry Ferry, which crosses the River Fal from the Roseland Peninsula and takes you almost to its gate. The mild, moist climate kick-starts the spring season early with tree magnolias and displays of camellias in their many red, pink and white forms, fuelled by ever-swelling numbers of arboreal and other rhododendrons through the woods and arboretum. Pools of daffodils, anemones and other bulbs join them. The foliage features are equally dazzling in this garden, ranging from huge-leaved rhododendron species to tree ferns, dating back to the mid 19th century and growing up to 30 feet high.

Wallington, Northumberland

This 18th-century estate, bisected by the moorland road from Hexham to Rothbury, is full of botanical interest. On one side of the road is the Palladian mansion, with its grand clock-tower courtyard and sweeping views towards Hadrian’s Wall. The accompanying woods are awash with bluebells, and in the new woodland garden along the entrance drive primroses and daffodils flower among the emerging leaves of ferns and grasses. Across the road there are flashes of rhododendrons and azaleas towards the lake, and eventually the surprise is sprung: hidden down the bank is a large sloping Walled Garden of formal beds and streamside shrubberies, with tulips, crown imperials and, early in the season, a crocus lawn among the spring highlights.