The gardens to warm up your winter

IT’S tempting to hunker down when it’s getting colder outside, but this is a great time to visit a glorious garden brimming with seasonal interest. From lesser-known gems to lauded landscapes, here are ten of the best that will help to banish any winter blues…

Stone Lane Gardens, Devon

Spread over five acres on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, this is one of the most atmospheric gardens I’ve ever visited. Started in the early 1970s by Kenneth and June Ashburner, the woodland gem is home to thousands of trees, including 70 varieties of birch, many with attractive white bark, which stand like ghostly sentinels on frosty or snowy days. stonelanegardens.com

Mottisfont, Hampshire

Mention Mottisfont and most gardeners will think of its famed rose garden, but this 25-acre landscape in the Test Valley boasts a cracking winter garden. Opened in 2010, the half-acre space is crammed full of seasonal-interest trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials and bulbs – and you can enjoy a peaceful walk alongside the man-made chalk stream that flows through. nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/ hampshire/mottisfont

The Savill Garden, Surrey

This 35-acre garden, along with its neighbour, The Valley Gardens, is a 1,000-acre masterpiece that’s sometimes dubbed the Royal Landscape. Set within Windsor Great Park, the Savill Garden was created in the 1930s by horticulturist Sir Eric Savill. There are swathes of pollarded golden willows by a lake and beds planted for winter, featuring things such as ornamental bramble and dogwoods. windsorgreatpark.co.uk

Cambridge University Botanic Garden

Nestling in the heart of the city, this historic 40-acre garden boasts a purpose-built winter garden first planted in 1979. Occupying about an acre, it is south-facing and navigated by a meandering path that leads past plants picked for their colourful bark, structure, flowers and berries. Among the gems is Colletia paradoxa, a heavily barbed shrub with almond-scented blooms. botanic.cam.ac.uk

Dorothy Clive Garden, Staffordshire

Established by Colonel Harry Clive in the 1940s and named in honour of his wife, this 12-acre hillside garden has plenty to excite at this time of year. Its dedicated, one-acre winter garden features a host of cold-season treats, including a number of sarcococca shrubs with their scented blooms. dorothyclivegarden.co.uk

Witley Court and Gardens, Worcestershire

The ruins of a 17th Century Italianate mansion provide a spectacular backdrop to this 40-acre landscaped garden partially laid out by William Andrews Nesfield in the 1850s. There’s lots of eyecatching structural planting to see in the parterre close to the house, while the wilderness garden with its cascade waterfall, contains shrubs with scented flowers and early flowering bulbs and perennials. www.english-heritage.org.uk/ visit/places/witley-courtand-gardens

RHS Garden Harlow Carr, North Yorkshire

Set in a gentle valley on the outskirts of Harrogate, this 68-acre site is full of winter delights, including a 1,000ft-long walk that winds its way past beds planted with trees and shrubs with showy stems, plants with scented blooms and a host of bulbs, such as snowdrops, winter aconites and dwarf irises. rhs.org.uk/gardens/harlow-carr

Seaton Delaval Hall, Northumberland

Nicknamed the ‘Geordie Versailles’, Seaton Delaval Hall was designed in the 18th Century by Sir John Vanbrugh and has recently undergone a £7.4million restoration. The house sits within a large estate with a three-acre formal garden with manicured lawns, statues and a parterre of neat hedges and lollipop-shaped whitebeams. nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/ north-east/seaton-delaval-hall

Dyffryn Gardens, South Glamorgan

A stone’s-throw from Cardiff, this 55-acre garden was created by Thomas Mawson, a landscape architect in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. Here he designed different garden ‘rooms’ with a strong structural backbone due to the use of topiary and statuary, while witch hazels and honeysuckles perfume the air. nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/wales/ dyffryn-gardens

Cambo Gardens, Fife

Owned by the Erskine family since the 1670s, Cambo House is within a 1,200-acre estate on the coast. Its 2½-acre Georgian walled garden turns heads from winter till early spring, thanks to the structural seed heads of perennials and grasses. Among the winter warmers in its 70-acre woodland garden are mahonias, dogwoods, ornamental brambles and sheets of snowdrops. cambogardens.org.uk l Some gardens have limited opening hours, so please check websites before travelling.