Ness Botanical Gardens: a jewel on the Wirral Peninsula; bold, bright, and a feast of horticultural delights.

We visited the gardens in summer, but they are a place for all seasons, with a stunning collection of snowdrops in the spring, followed by a magnificent display of magnolias, camellias and rhododendrons leading into the warmer months. Later in the year you’ll find the vibrant colours of autumn, especially when the Rowan trees come into their own, all glowing berries and fiery leaves. And in winter there are clear views across the Dee estuary to the Welsh Clwydian Hills beyond.

We started our visit by ambling down through the heather garden, past the ponds and pools of the water garden, and out into the wildflower meadows overlooking the saltmarshes of the Dee. A froth of colour in June and July, buzzing with bees and butterflies, they had become a mass of gold and oatmeal interspersed with white umbellifers; swathes of seed heads, wild and beautiful.

Then it was time for something more formal; the well-kept rectangular beds of the herbaceous gardens. These stunning borders took our breath away and filled our heads with dream planting plans. Pure inspiration!

I lingered in the Victorian style potager with its pretty glasshouse, admiring row upon row of brightly-coloured chard, and green and purple brassicas, sweet peas, and calendula flowers. More dreaming followed.

The bees lingered too, enjoying the nectar-rich flowers of the heliotrope and lavender; a purple runway leading towards the raised beds.

A walk through the pine woods, cool and calm, brought us back to the main gardens, and when our legs had finally given up, we headed to the Garden Kitchen café for a relaxing al fresco lunch. There was just time to snap up a pot of deliciously fragrant lemon verbena from the selection of plants on sale, before heading home.

Images by Helen Duncan