Classic Gardening Magazine

10 Great April Gardens
This is Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens, designed by Edward White for Sir Noel Mobbs in 1934. The launch literature said of it: “For those who would prefer a beautiful, quiet, peaceful green natural resting place away from the razzmatazz of the Cemetery or Crematorium then Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens will come as a welcome relief.”

There are actually 2,000 individual gardens, in which the ashes of loved ones have been scattered.

White said of his unique creation: “In particular there will be no buildings, structures or monuments of any kind likely to remind one of a cemetery.”

Which means that you can visit this place just as you would any lovely garden. It is Grade 2 listed and beautifully, eclectically designed.

There is open grassland with mature trees including a 500-year-old oak, a grand main avenue flanked by rhododendron an spiraea, an informal rock and water garden and a formal rose garden.

The only hint that you are in a place dedicated to the dead are the numerous, discrete metal memorial plaques that dot the landscape. They are everywhere: along the borders lining the main avenue, in the alcoves of the formal gardens, and in the many little glades in the informal gardens.

In all, around 2,000 individual gardens are marked out, many with benches for those who visit the departed, and brightened with vases of fresh flowers.

The centrepiece of the gardens is a spectacular colonnade with a cloistered pergola surrounding a sunken water garden. There are raised water troughs with fountains along the four sides, rills of water running towards the centre and there, at the heart of the garden, a round pond with dancing fountain.

If Stoke Poges doesn’t grab you, here are nine other Great April Gardens.

2 Glendoick Gardens, Perth, Scotland
One of the finest collections of rhododendrons and azaleas, primula, meconopsis, kalmia and sorbus.

3 Muncaster Castle, Cumbria
A large collection of camellias, magnolias and species rhododendrons in sublime Lakelands landscape.

4. Exbury Gardens, New Forest, Hampshire
A million rhododendrons in 200-acres of woodland, plus camellias and magnolias.

5 Antony Woodland Garden, Cornwall
Three hundred varieties of camellia, rhododendron and magnolia in a 100-acre plantsman's garden.

6 Broadleas, Wiltshire
The rare magnolia 'Broadleas' and a yellow magnolia are among the many spring attractions. The woodland garden is underplanted with swathes of unusual bulbs.

7 Caerhays Castle, Cornwall
A 100-acre woodland garden that houses the National Collection of magnolia and is also home to the hybrid Camellia x williamsii and many hybrid rhododendrons.

8 Dudmaston Gardens, Shropshire
An eight-acre, 19th-century garden with magnolias, flowering cherries and kalmias, all under-planted with primroses and daffodils, against a backcloth of rhododendrons.

9 Hergest Croft Gardens, Herefordshire
A woodland garden and arboretum with one of the best collections of rhododendrons in Britain. Magnolias and flowering cherry trees surround the house.

10 Howick Hall, Northumberland
A fine collection of rhododendrons and azaleas among 11,000 trees and shrubs, plus a sea of bulbs, including old varieties of daffodils, fritillaries, scillas and erythroniums in the woodland garden.