There’s no month like April when swathes of Cornwall’s woodlands get carpeted with millions of bluebells. Alongside the breath-taking vivid blue flowers with their heavenly scent, giant rhododendrons burst into flower heralding the start of spring.
The gentle climate means that Cornwall can boast some world-famous gardens which are at their best in March, April and May. First come the magnolias, followed by camellias and then rhododendrons and scented azaleas. And Cornwall’s long narrow shape means that even the gardens of the south coast are within a fairly easy drive from your self-catering home in Rooks, Robin’s Nest or Sea Song. I’m going to mention three of my favourites.
Caerhays Castle and Gardens is located in a sheltered valley overlooking Porthluney Cove on the south Cornish coast halfway between Truro and St. Austell. There’s 120 acres of magnificent woodland full of plants mainly discovered by famous plant hunters and hybridised by the Williams family, which includes a national collection of magnolias. Caerhays is justly famous as one of the great gardens of the world and is worth a special trip especially as it’s only open for a few months in early spring.
Nearer home Lanhydrock just the other side of Bodmin is always worth a visit. Explore formal parterres of dazzling bedding plants and wander along paths that wind through a woodland landscape with rhododendrons and Himalayan magnolias growing to their full-size in the fresh Cornish air. Because the grounds lie inland and rise up to 130-metres above sea level, the plants have to cope with harsher climates than the lush valley gardens of the south coast. In spite of this, Lanhydrock still puts on one of the county’s most colourful spring shows, with over 120 species of cream and white magnolias featuring amongst a flurry of wild primroses that carpet the woodland. And after a stroll around the gardens and through the woodland there is yet more to come – you get a true feeling of life below stairs in the servant’s quarters of Lanhydrock House itself. Pencarrow estate has been the home of the Molesworth family and their descendants since Elizabethan times and is only a few miles down the Camelford to Bodmin Road for residents staying at Rooks or Robin’s Nest.
Pencarrow is approached by a magnificent mile-long carriage drive through an Iron Age hill fort where millions of snowdrops bloom in early February. Around the house itself are formal gardens, a large Victorian rock garden and ice house, a Celtic cross, 50 acres of parkland, lake and woodland with more than 700 varieties of rhododendrons and many camellias, easily accessible along well-maintained footpaths. Dogs are welcome off the lead in the woodland but must be kept on the lead around the house. Pencarrow is also a popular film location especially adaptations of novels written by Cornish author Rosamunde Pilcher who enjoys a huge following in Germany with films serialised on the national German TV station Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen.
Local, privately-owned gardens listed in the Yellow Book include Ken Caro at Liskeard, a connoisseur’s garden with over 200 camellias open on 5th May; Trebartha near Launceston is an interesting walled garden and bluebell walk, open on 13th May this year, refreshments available; the eight-acre pleasure garden at Wick Farm is open on 20th, 27th, and 28th May and they too, are doing home made cakes and cream teas. The Yellow Book is published by the National Gardens Scheme and all details for private gardens, including directions, can be found online: www.ngs.org.uk