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The Loveliest Gardens in Wales
From big-hitting horticultural extravaganza the National Botanic Garden of Wales through woodland sculpture gardens in the south to Italianate marvels in the north, these are Dream Escape's favourite Welsh gardens to visit in 2024.
The countryside in Wales shimmers in a myriad shades of green, from its hilltops to its riversides. But stop by some of the country’s exquisite gardens, and the full, vibrant palate of the colours of Welsh nature starts to reveal itself. Whether it is the world’s largest single-span glasshouse and its wondrous array of Mediterranean basin plants at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, the rosy hues of one of the UK’s most important rhododendron collections at Swansea’s Clyne Gardens or Eryyi National Park's (Snowdonia National Park's) Italianate idyll of Plas Brondanw, Wales offers some dazzlingly diverse displays of horticulture. From sculpture gardens and jungle gardens in the south to rare parterres, laburnum arches and red squirrelfrequented estates in the north, these are some of Dream Escape’s favourite Welsh landscaped spaces to visit.
South Wales
Aberglasney Gardens, Carmarthenshire
Best for: cloister gardens and poetic inspiration
In previous centuries Aberglasney and its surroundings, the wood-embosomed slopes above the River Teifi, were already deemed dazzling enough to inspire some famous poetry, notably former Aberglasney estate owner John Dyer’s 18th-century works Grongar Hill and The Country Walk . The site of a country mansion and estate for over half a millennium, Aberglasney fell into 20th-century decline before an ambitious restoration project saw this bewitching mosaic of different gardens open to the pubic in 1999. The grounds include the UK’s only Elizabethan cloister garden, a unique Ninfarium – an assemblage of medieval ruins and exotic plants – and rare features such as a yew tunnel.
National Botanic Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire
Best for: water features and glasshouses
The first botanic garden to be created in the United Kingdom for two centuries, Wales’ flagship gardens near Llanarthne have now flourished on entrepreneur William Paxton’s former late-18th-century estate since 2000. Paxton’s original ground layout featured what became some of the UK’s finest water gardens in their day, and this Regency wonder has now been restored faithfully, in accordance with contemporaneous paintings of Paxton’s estate at its acme. The Norman Foster–designed greenhouse, the world’s largest single-span glasshouse, – housing Mediterranean-climate-zone plants from around the world – is another highlight. There is also a herb garden festooned with plants – the Physicians of Myddfai, the court-appointed healers to the medieval Princes of Wales, used in their remedies.
Clyne Gardens, Swansea
Best for: urban gardens
You do not even have to leave the city behind when you come to Clyne Gardens, conveniently situated just behind the sandy coastline separating Swansea and its seaside suburb Mumbles. It is known across Wales and beyond for its standout array of rhododendrons, and also features Britain’s tallest-recorded magnolia and one of its loftiest Monterrey cypresses. Secreted away beneath the gardens’ rambling meadow is a Japanese garden: defined by a comely red-and-white-painted bridge spanning a tumbling cascade from an ornamental pond, it has become one of Swansea’s most famous landmarks.
Wye Valley Sculpture Garden, Monmouthshire
Best for: sculpture and snowdrops
Wales’ foremost sculpture garden is the cumulative vision of three generations of family passion for the natural world, where Gemma Anne Wood’s sculptures decorate lovingly-tended terrain on which her botanist parents had previously amassed a diverse plant collection and which her grandparents originally established in the 1950s. Spanning three acres in the leafy Wye Valley Area of Natural Beauty, the gardens encompass woods celebrated for their snowdrop carpets, a pond, meadows, lawns, vibrant herbaceous plots and Wood’s sculptures, which are all inspired by the Wye Valley.
Pembrokeshire
Picton Castle Gardens
Best for: walled gardens and horticultural history
Medieval castle turned mighty 17th-century manor, Picton Castle is Pembrokeshire’s most magnificent stately home, and its estate abutting the Cleddau Estuary is equally enthralling. There is a rhododendron collection with species found nowhere else in the woodland garden, while 19th-century walled gardens burst with the vibrant charm of an ornamental lake and fountain, a Mediterranean flowerbed, a medicinal herb section and several secret garden rooms. Watch out around the grounds for outstanding camellia, rose, myrtle and magnolia collections too. There is even a display on lawnmowers throughout the ages.
Dyffryn Fernant
Best for: celebrating Welsh flora
Caught between the West Pembrokeshire coast and the barren moors of the Preseli Hills near the port of Fishguard, Dyffryn Fernant was forged from scratch by garden creator Christina Shand out of a swathe of unforgiving terrain: rocky ground, marsh and scant topsoil presented no end of horticultural challenges. But the gardens have overcome adversity to develop into one of Wales’ most glorious small gardens since their beginnings in 1996. Habitats such as the bog, pasture, orchard and cwm (valley) – which are seldom-celebrated characteristics of the Welsh countryside – are championed and made into features. From the Magic Garden you can also watch the formal grounds seamlessly blend into the surrounding wild hills. There are especially resplendent displays of azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons.
North Wales
Bodnant Garden, Conwy
Best for: Laburnum arches and champion trees
Created in 1874, Bodnant Gardens spans 80 acres of slopes above the River Conwy, with views across to the biggest tract of contiguous high-altitude upland in Wales, Snowdonia’s Carneddau. The chief lure here is the laburnum arch –the UK’s longest – flowering in May. Turn-of-the-20th-century plant hunters brought back rare examples of flora from locales like the Himalayas to establish a radiant repository for rhododendrons and magnolias here as well: these form three of the gardens’ five national plant collections, along with Embothriums (a South American genus) and Eucryphias (a mostly evergreen genus from South
America and Australasia). Bodnant also hosts Wales’ largest collection of champion trees (trees considered special for their dimensions or significance). The arboreal A-list sports sequoias, maples, beeches and oaks.
Plas Brondanw, Gwynedd
Best for: Italianate gardens
While the beachside Italianate village of Portmeirion may be Clough Williams-Ellis’ most famous creation, it is these little-known gardens just north of Garreg near Penrhyndeudraeth that are often regarded as his crowning achievement. It’s a series of similarly Italian-inspired small gardens, peppered with fountains and sculpture in tribute to Renaissance Italy, where the lines of the topiary-sculpted hedges and walls conspire to maximise views of Snowdonia’s summits. Features include a pool and cascade built into a former quarry, a woodland walk and a folly commemorating Williams-Ellis’ marriage. It’s all arranged around a 1550-built house that Williams-Ellis had as his home for many years.
Bodysgallen Hall, Llandudno
Best for: parterres and panoramas
Bodysgallen Hall, an opulent 17th-century country house hotel in the hills between Llandudno and Conwy, is impressive in its own right. But the encircling 200 acres of grounds are what render the estate one of the UK’s most delightful. An extremely rare 17th-century parterre, a lily pond, a walled kitchen garden and a rose garden compose the formal gardens. Meanwhile, there are estate walks to a ruined castle and to an obelisk viewpoint opening up breathtaking vistas along the North Wales coast to Conwy’s UNESCO-listed castle and medieval town walls and beyond to Snowdonia’s pointy peaks.
Plas Newydd, Anglesey
Best for: island gardens
It was Humphry Repton, one of the all-time greats of classic English landscape garden design, who devised Plas Newydd, the only island-based landscaped garden in Wales. This Menai Strait–facing estate on Anglesey is Grade I-listed and comprises an 18th-century stately home, a 40-acre formal garden and a 129-acre woodland. The woods are one of the few spots in Wales where red squirrels can be seen and the sheltered Menai Strait climes permit a wide spectrum of flora to flourish. Expect everything from a rhododendron garden to the blazes of tulips and other perennials in the Sunroom Courtyard and Italianate Terraces.
Cacen Gri gyda Jam a Hufen Os Gwelwch Yn Dda (Welsh cakes with jam and cream, please!)
MICHAEL DAVIES, TRAVEL DESIGN MANAGER
Although the Welsh countryside conjures images of barren mountains and windswept pastureland, Wales – like all the wilder regions of the British Isles – has its share of delightful gardens.
Although the Welsh countryside conjures images of barren mountains and windswept pastureland, Wales – like all the wilder regions of the British Isles – has its share of delightful gardens.
From the manicured lawns of castles and country houses to dramatically situated borders in idyllic rural settings, there are gardens to please the traveller across the Principality.
The supreme symbol of Welsh horticulture is the spectacular dome at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, the largest single-span great glasshouse in the world.
Words | Luke Waterson
