United Kingdom
My favourite garden is Ness Botanical Gardens managed by Liverpool University but open to the public all year round.
My wife’s favourite time of year is late spring when the bottom meadow is festooned with Cow Parsley. Each year the thoughtful gardeners cut a swathe through the Cow Parsley so that visitors like us can walk within the scented florets on either side swaying in the breeze.
Winter is a good time to visit, as you will have most of the vistas to yourself, which includes the magnificent views over the River Dee, and it’s estuary to the Welsh hills beyond.
The gardens are famous for its mature trees, rare plants and wild flower meadows. It also boasts well-established herbaceous borders and of course its famous Laburnum terrace walk way.
Autumn brings feathered visitors to feast on hare berries and the fruits of the mountain ash. Blackbirds and thrushes will be finishing off the crab apples. Flocks of fieldfares busily combing the meadows and hopefully, we might get to see that rarest of visitors from Scandinavia, the waxwing.
www.nessgardens.org.uk
Ness, Neston, South Wirral, CH64 4AY
+44(0) 845 0304063
Google map: bit.ly/WIF4cv