Gardens to visit
Visiting a beautiful garden can be a wholly enriching experience. The benefits of visiting a garden – from mental health right through to exercise – are huge, and garden days out are perfect ways to have fun on your own, or as an entire family.
Regardless of how, and whoever you visit with, we have a host of suggestions of which gardens to visit, from gardens for the season, through to the gardens that are in full bloom and at their best each month. We have collated lists of the best gardens to visit with the help of our experts and many years of visiting gardens all around the UK, and beyond. We have gardens organised by theme, days out and local area, so you should find something for wherever you are and whatever garden experience you are looking for.
Enjoy our comprehensive guide to the best gardens to visit in the UK.
The best places to pick your own flowers
Now is the season for filling your vases with freshly cut flowers to brighten the home. We recommend the best flower farms and gardens in the UK that invite you to pick your own blooms.
The best gardens to visit in July
Nurseryman Keith Wiley recommends the best gardens to visit in July to see their plants in full bloom
The best places to pick your own sunflowers near you
Fancy picking some sunny blooms to brighten up your home? Here's our selection of the best PYO sunflower farms you can visit this summer
11 cool, alternative garden festivals and events to enjoy this summer
From a compost festival to an exhibition displaying a 1500s gardening manual, there are plenty of fascinating events to attend this summer.
The best lavender farms to visit for Instagram-worthy shots and heady scents of summer
Swathes of blue and purple as far as the eye can see – we recommend the best lavender farms to visit for a perfect summer day out
Wondering what jobs to get done this summer? Let Sissinghurst's expert head gardener guide you
Sissinghurst’s head gardener Troy Scott Smith guides us through the jobs that he and his team do in summer.
Be inspired by these beautiful gardens to visit that will look their best in June
Gardeners Tom Brown and Asa Gregers-Warg recommend the best gardens to visit in June to see plants in full flower
The Newt: a garden for all seasons
Discover the Somerset estate that offers history, horticulture, culinary excellence, education and much more
Visit these stunning spots in May for peak garden enjoyment in the UK and beyond
Plantsman Keith Wiley recommends the best gardens to visit in May to see their plants in full bloom
Peonies that can last for 100 years: the remarkable plants that can come with a high price tag
At Primrose Hall Nursery Alec White specialises in breeding rare and desirable intersectional peonies – plants that can last for 100 years.
The best places to see a beautiful blue carpet of bluebells in a wood or garden near you
Wandering in a bluebell wood is a magical experience. Here are our recommendations for where to see bluebells – and other spring delights.
A festival for tulips? Here are the festivals around the world celebrating the arrival of the beautiful spring flower
Discover some of the best tulip festivals to visit for a colourful start to spring. From Amsterdam to London, find a festival near you.
Stunning spots for a spring garden visit: gardens to visit that will look lovely in April
Plantsman Keith Wiley recommends the best gardens to visit in April to see plants at their best.
This secret garden of London’s Brutalist icon is open to all 24 hours, and the perfect example of a successful public planting scheme
As a new phase of planting begins, Professor Nigel Dunnett looks at how the iconic public gardens he created at The Barbican Estate in London have evolved over the past decade
Beautiful gardens with daffodils and spring displays - gardens to visit that will look great this month
Gardener and plantsman Keith Wiley shares his favourite gardens to visit in March.
You’re going to have to change how you garden, advises head of one of England’s top flower gardens, and it’s all down to climate change
The climate crisis is affecting us all. Head gardener Troy Scott Smith outlines the challenges he faces and explains how he is now working differently.
Photographs: John Campbell
The English country town where everyone goes completely snowdrop mad each February
The annual Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Festival in Somerset is the place to be for galanthophiles in February.
Half term | Garden days out with the kids
Garden days out with the kids are the perfect way to spend half term holidays and more
16 gardens from Monty Don's British Gardens that you can visit too
Enjoyed Monty Don's recent TV series on great British gardens? Many of the ones he visited are also open to the public. Here we round up some of the best that you can visit too
Top 10 most romantic gardens to visit with your loved one
Lose your heart in one of the world's most romantic gardens. Garden writer Anna Pavord picks ten of her favourite gardens to visit that will sweep you off your feet.
Best places to propose: pop the question in a garden
Thinking of proposing to your beloved? Why not do it in style and pull off the perfect marriage proposal in one of our pick of beautiful garden venues
The surprising ways the scammers of the plant world swindle unsuspecting pollinators (spoiler: it's sex... or a fight)
There are plants which use deception to get what they want: discover these remarkable plants that go to extreme lengths to trick pollinators to visit them
Escape to a dreamy new resort on the Sardinian coast with a beautiful wild garden
Planting designer Marco Scano’s resilient and sensitive scheme for the garden of a new holiday resort in Sardinia works in harmony with the local landscape and native planting.
Gardens to visit in February for snowdrops, crocuses and more
Keith Wiley, plantsman and owner of Wildside Garden and Tom Coward, head gardener at Gravetye Manor, recommend gardens to visit that look beautiful in February