Castle Howard. Photo: Loop Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
In the depths of winter with its low gray skies, the scents and colors of embryonic spring are a welcome boost to morale. These gardens will provide spectacular views over the coming months as banks of delicate snowdrops and armies of budding daffodils, bluebells and tulips return.
Castle Howard, North Yorkshire
Early purple crocuses line the driveway before a huge wave of daffodils rolls across the lawn of Castle Howard, 15 miles north of York, from February to April (often peaking around Easter). From early spring, peacocks show off their new tail feathers, grapes bloom in the old rose garden and freckles bloom on the banks of Ray Wood. There are paths through the forest among early blossoms and bright green leaves. From the end of April the forest bursts into colour, with bluebells and neon rhododendrons. The Skelf Island adventure playground opened in 2019 and there are several cafes dotted around the vast grounds, serving locally grown produce such as the estate's own sausages.
By £9/£4.50. Gardens and grounds are open daily, castlehoward.co.uk
Borde Hill, West Sussex
With a self-guided spring route through citrus-scented magnolia and flamboyant camellias, Borde Hill is a hidden gem. Five thousand February Gold daffodils have been newly planted for 2024 and there is a café in the old Peacock House. Horticulturist Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke began creating the garden when he purchased the estate in 1893. He paid plant hunters to find seeds for Chinese tulip trees and white-flowered lacebark from New Zealand, so visitors can walk around the world as they walk through them. . Fragrant Chinese honeysuckle, arrowwood and more bloom in early spring. From a formal Italian garden, where pine and eucalyptus are reflected in the lily pond, paths lead through subtropical ferns and palm trees to the wilder rhododendron garden, with its Himalayan hybrids, some of which bloom from March.
£12 adult / £8 child, free for historic houses members. Open daily from Feb. 10, bordehill.nl
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RHS Hyde Hall, Essex
The 15,000 snowdrop bulbs planted in Hyde Hall's winter garden in 2017 have spread and multiplied into delicate white carpets under glowing midwinter dogwood stems and varied evergreens, all looking great in February. Winding paths lead through a sensory smörgåsbord of textured bark, luminous birch trunks and fragrant shrubs. Crocuses and aconites line the Upper Pond with its views of the hills across Essex, with trees including early flowering cherries and magnolia blooming from around March. £15.85/£7.95, RHS members free. Open daily, rhs.org.uk
Pensthorpe, Norfolk
This 280 hectare nature reserve in the Wensum Valley has a sculpture trail through the wetlands, flower meadows and bird hides. It's also home to cranes, flamingos, huge playgrounds, an avocet-filled aviary and five themed gardens. Designer Piet Oudolf's first public British project, the Millennium Garden, created in 1999, is dotted with winter seed buds and ornamental grasses such as purplish feather reed and prickly sea holly, which are also vibrant throughout the spring. A newer addition to the reserve, the Corten Infinity Garden, includes banana palms and a huge centerpiece made of rusted steel. The Wave Garden, designed by Chelsea Flower Show winner Julie Toll, features lake views and flowing yew hedges, snowflakes and fragrant white daffodils.
Seasonal prices from £10.95/£9.95. Open daily, pensthorpe.com
Eltham Palace, London
These English heritage gardens in south-east London exude a hint of winter sweetness and the spicy vanilla scent of viburnum lingers into March. Banks of cream and crimson hellebores, sky blue scilla and countless early flower bulbs frame the striped walls of the palace - there is always something blooming, peaking in late spring. You walk into the garden over one of London's oldest functional bridges; Geoffrey Chaucer (of Canterbury Tales fame) oversaw the construction work. Inside the medieval palace is an Art Deco extravaganza with a circular hall and a gold mosaic bathroom.
£14.50/£8.60, free for members of English Heritage. Open weekends, every day during the half of FebruaryAnd then Wednesday-Sundayenglishheritage.org.uk
Seaton Deleval Hall, Northumberland
The gardens of this atmospheric National Trust property, about 10 miles north of Newcastle, have recently been restored to frame the dramatic shell of architect John Vanbrugh's last, finest house. The formal Italian-style parterre features curved box hedges, manicured white beams, a fountain and stone urns. There are February snowdrops in the wilder woodlands, aconites in the borders, excellent coastal walks nearby and a direct bus from Newcastle.
£10/£5. Open Wednesday to Sunday, nationaltrust.org.uk
Winterbourne House, Birmingham
This is an Edwardian villa in the pretty suburb of Edgbaston of Birmingham. Gertrude Jekyll's books inspired Margaret Nettlefold to design the Arts and Crafts-style grounds with their walled garden, daffodil-lined nut walk, bridge, stream and pergola, flowering from February to April. There are magnolias, rhododendrons and a sinuous new winter garden just steps from the lawn, with honeysuckle, twisted hazels and early spring bulbs. £8/£6.90. Open daily, winterbourne.org.uk
Attadale Gardens, Wester Ross
Spring comes late in the Highlands. When these gardens open at Easter, daffodils, primroses and catkins are pale golden harbingers of the bold candelabra primroses, irises, lilies and azaleas that will bloom in the weeks that follow. Attadale won RHS Partner Garden of the Year for Scotland in 2023. The gardens are full of intriguing details: a spectacular tree fern in a sunken fern garden, bronze birds and animals, bridges, thickets of bamboo and, after the spring rains, seasonal waterfalls over mossy, with vine-covered cliffs. The tree-framed view from the garden takes in the jagged hills of Skye from a rocky outcrop up some stone steps at the end of the rhododendron walk, with some late March flowers.
Adult €10, children under 16 free. Open daily from 28 Marchattadalegardens.com
Dunham Massey, Greater Manchester
One of Britain's largest winter gardens is already lighting up the darkest months in Dunham Massey, not far from Manchester. Scarlet and ocher stems of dogwood and flame willow above snowdrops and early daffodils. From about March they are joined by the starry blue scilla and Glory-of-the-snow. Dunham Massey gardeners planted more than 40,000 extra spring bulbs last year. New daffodil varieties include the striking, early flowering January Silvers and striking, vibrant yellow Jetfires. Light floods the 18th-century orangery and the fallow deer, wandering through the medieval park, begin to shed their antlers.
£8.50/£4.25free for NT members. Gardens open daily, nationaltrust.org.uk
Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall
Heligan's enormous pink and cream magnolia flowers are among the flowers used to calculate the rapid arrival of spring in Cornwall. February is already bursting with pastel-colored camellias and lipstick-colored rhododendrons. There are yellow primroses and early daffodils in the woods under dangling catkins, delicate purple crocuses around the pond and blossoms in the Peach House. £18.50/£8.50. Open daily, heligan.com
Penrhyn Castle, Gwynedd
The rolling gardens surrounding this towering neo-Norman citadel are older than the castle itself. The watery swamp garden and the fuchsia pergola, the walled garden with its red and yellow tulips, the rhododendron walk and the bell-covered hills covered in ornamental blossoms make this an enchanting April destination. Before then there are hints of tequila-sharp witch hazel and glossy sweet box, tiny daffodils and commanding views through bare trees to the long coast and white-capped mountains of Eryri (Snowdonia).
£15/£7.50. Gardens Open on weekends and daily from February 12, the castle reopens March 1, nationaltrust.org.uk
Glenarm Castle, County Antrim
The grounds of Glenarm Castle, winner of the Historic Houses Garden of the Year 2023, have expanded through waves of spring blooms to host a tulip festival in early May, with fritillaries nodding their checkered heads from April. In the 1820s the Countess of Antrim created the four-acre walled garden, pineapple-producing greenhouse and enormous circular yew hedge. There are coastal views and a woodland walk, where red squirrels hide above rhododendrons and camellias before the white flowers of wild garlic sweep the forest floor.
£10/£8.50, HHA and RHS members free. Open daily from March 17, glenarmcastle.com
