Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Hampshire

My visit to this enormous and beautiful garden in early May proved to be perfectly timed to catch the vast Rhododendron collection at its best – but there was so much more to see. The enquiring plant-lover will find no less than 14 national collections of trees and shrubs, including oaks (I had no idea there were so many!), pines, cotoneaster and dogwoods here. These are shown off with subtle and beautiful underplantings, sometimes wild, sometimes carefully tended, and there are fabulous herbaceous borders, rockeries and water plants, too. Everything, even the native oaks and pines the garden has been built around, was carefully and accurately labelled, to my intense delight (I like to know what I’m looking at!) I could have done with at least another day to investigate, and I most certainly didn’t see everything. Here are just a few of the plants I enjoyed meeting.

Eucalyptus dalrympleana, the Mountain Gum, a native of SE Australia, and just one of the thousands of beautiful trees on show from all over the world.

Paeonia tenuifolia, the Fernleaf Peony, a plant native to Russia and Ukraine. I saw this in one of the rockery beds and it was love at first sight. What an absolute beauty. This is a plant I’d dearly love to have in my garden.

It was hard to choose just one Rhododendron from the enormous choice here. They grow superbly well in Hampshire, and this one is a hybrid originating from neighbouring garden Exbury. Rhododendron ‘Strawberry Ice’. Well, what else could you call it?

For full details on Sir Harold Hillier Gardens see www.hants.gov.uk/thingstodo/hilliergardens