Gardens of England: Too many choices for one trip

What’s not to love about English gardens? With their colorful flower borders, trademark walls, reflecting pools, and perhaps a stately manor, they are a delight to explore.

As a garden writer, I love exploring both famous and lesser-known gardens when I travel. So it should come as no surprise that I indulged in some serious garden-hopping during a recent trip to England.

My husband and I rented a car to explore southern England, starting in Royal Tunbridge Wells, slowly heading west to Cornwall, and looping back toward London via Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon and a snippet of the Cotswolds.

Before leaving home, we purchased memberships in the National Trust, which preserves over 500 places within the United Kingdom. This enabled us to spontaneously access gardens and sites while avoiding admission fees that could have gobbled up our travel budget.

(A year’s membership for a couple is 108 pounds, or roughly $142 in U.S. dollars. A typical admission price is 12.70 pounds, or $16.70, so it will be worth it if you plan to visit more than four sites.)

Our first stop was Chartwell House, Winston Churchill’s home in Kent. We walked through rooms furnished with mementos that brought the history of that era to life. The house tour included a visit to the studio where Churchill painted interesting and attractive scenes for much of his adult life.

As soon as I spied an old wall on the estate, I knew there must be a garden hiding behind it. The arched entry framed a limited view of what turned out to be an extensive garden bordered by perennials. The central walkway was lined with a charming combination of yellow roses and purple hyssop. I enjoyed chatting with the gardeners as they tended plantings of rhubarb, purple artichokes, broad beans, potatoes and salad greens.

Sheffield Park and Garden in East Sussex was completely different. Beautifully planted parkland and large ponds greeted us as we followed the circuitous pathways. Bridges led us through woodlands, and over waterfalls to impressive views of the manor house in the distance. We could only imagine how beautiful the grounds must be throughout the seasons. It would’ve been easy to spend an entire day there.

While I’ve been to Sissinghurst Castle Garden before, I was only too happy to stroll through one of England’s most beautiful gardens again. The series of garden rooms filled to the brim with blooming roses and perennials are the result of Vita Sackville-West’s creative vision during the 1930s. I soon found myself in the company of visitors speaking many different languages. Knowing a plant’s Latin name allowed me to share a common language with them as we smiled and nodded each time we admired a flower.

The grounds also include the iconic tower, Elizabethan house, several distinctive-looking oasts (kilns for drying hops), the famous “white garden,” and an extensive vegetable garden and orchard.

After visiting Stonehenge, we traveled on to Avebury, site of the world’s largest prehistoric stone circle where we followed a path among the stones. A must-see site adjacent to the stone circle is Avebury Manor and Garden. After a tour through the manor, we explored the formal gardens complete with topiary, clipped hedges and reflecting pools. I enjoyed seeing the vegetable garden, where natural materials such as pruned branches were used for plant supports and protection from pests. The raspberries and currants were enclosed in a cage to keep berry-eating birds and critters away.

At Stourhead, we took an enjoyable guided tour through the Palladian-style house, but it was the grounds that really called to me. Comprised of 2,650 acres, Stourhead is the first landscape garden I’ve ever visited. The paths through the woodlands were lined with magnificent trees and led to spectacular views. The walled garden was filled with edible crops, flowers and greenhouses for the estate.

Hidcote is another garden I’ve seen before but it did not disappoint the second time around. Designed by Major Lawrence Johnston in the early 1900s, it features one garden room after another, and I couldn’t wait to see what was around the corner. One would be filled with roses, foxgloves and cranesbills. Another contained a lovely water garden, while the next overflowed with eye-popping yellow flowers and tall spires of purple monkshood.

All of the above gardens were an absolute delight to stroll through and I picked up many useful tips and methods to apply in my own garden. The other National Trust sites we visited were Lacock, Saltram and Petworth. At each of the locations, there was a cafe serving delicious food and, of course, gift shops with appealing options. Darn those baggage limits.

We also visited two non-National Trust gardens in Cornwall because they were too spectacular to miss: the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

Perhaps you’ve seen photos of the enormous biomes of the Eden Project. In the mid-1990s, the founders began to transform a bleak clay pit mine into a fertile region. Their mission has been to provide a connection to the environment and educational opportunities for those who visit. The hallmarks of the site are the Rainforest and Mediterranean biomes, created to help visitors better understand those environments and why they are so critical to our planet’s health and ecological diversity. The surrounding areas feature edible, fiber-producing and pollinator gardens. In the Zigzag Through Time, trails lead visitors on a journey through the earth’s history. During our visit, groups of schoolchildren were enjoying this awesome living classroom.

The Lost Gardens of Heligan sounded intriguing enough to warrant adding it to our itinerary. Dating back to the late 17th century, the extensive gardens were at their most magnificent under the guidance of John Tremayne in the latter half of the 19th century. Sadly, they fell into a state of neglect during World War I and subsequently were forgotten. In the 1990s, Tremayne descendant John Willis and Eden Project co-founder Tim Smit rediscovered the gardens. This led to extensive restorations which continue to this day.

As an avid vegetable gardener, I was immediately drawn to the Victorian Productive Gardens where over 300 varieties of edible crops are grown for the Heligan Kitchen. A large greenhouse, called the Melon House, is used for growing melons and cucumbers during the summer months. Surprisingly, pineapples are grown in glass-covered cold frames, while also being used for seed-starting and plant propagation.

Other delights include the flower gardens, scented gardens, a collection of New Zealand plants, the lush “Jungle” and ancient woodlands.

There are so many more gardens to explore in the United Kingdom. From what we’ve seen so far, I am certain we’ll be heading back there in years to come.