47 Beth Chatto Gardens
Essex
Beth Chatto, 93, is my gardening heroine. Her horticultural ethos is essentially “right plant, right place”, and her garden outside Colchester proves this simple mantra works. Planted around a natural spring in an area with one of the lowest annual rainfalls in the country, it encompasses different areas with different types of growing conditions — including damp, shady waterside and dry, sunny gravel — all linked by acres of curvaceous planted shrubberies, borders and lawns. It’s everything a garden should be: intensely personal, sustainable and, often, achingly beautiful. Feel inspired? There’s an on-site nursery.
From £4.50; bethchatto.co.uk

48 Mottisfont Gardens
Hampshire
This magnificent walled rose garden is the perfect showcase for the nation’s favourite flower. It’s home to the national collection of old roses, including bourbons and Portlands, many of which were laid out by the renowned rosarian Graham Stuart Thomas. Fragrant, romantic and dazzling, this is a garden to thrill the senses. Beds and walls are strewn with rose blooms, the flowers cascading from arches and arbours. The once-flowering old roses peak in June, accompanied by well-chosen perennials such as pinks and hardy geraniums. As the season progresses, other more modern roses continue the show.
From £13.60, kids £6.80; nationaltrust.org.uk

49 Trebah Garden
Cornwall
Cornwall is blessed with an embarrassment of garden riches, but Trebah, the ultimate coastal garden, is my favourite. Winding paths lead visitors down from the entrance through the heart of the garden. Lush planting fills the landscape to either side of the river. Finally one comes to a small beach on the Helford River. On a sunny day, dipping your toes in the water is the icing on the cake. In high summer, clouds of azure hydrangeas are matched in intensity only by the blue of the sky and sea.
£10/£4; trebahgarden.co.uk

Tasteful restraint: Studley Royal Water Garden

50 Parham Hall
West Sussex
Even the tool shed will make you swoon at this captivating garden nestled in the South Downs. Plants have been cultivated on this site since the 14th century, and there is much to see. The red-brick walled garden is filled with clearly defined spaces that come together to form one fabulous blended family. It has several herbaceous borders — filled with artfully positioned and impeccably cared-for perennials — an orchard and a kitchen garden. I’m captivated by the glasshouse, which by midsummer bulges with tender flowering plants. Wearing its age with aplomb, Parham manages to stay bang up to date, too, staging regular plant trials and an annual Garden Weekend on July 8 and 9, with talks, demonstrations and plant sales.
From £9/£5; parhaminsussex.co.uk

51 National Botanic Garden of Wales
Carmarthenshire
This is still a relatively young garden, though parts of an older garden belonging to an impressive Regency villa are gradually being restored. Serious botanical research projects are its raison d’être: a double-walled garden houses a vast array of plants arranged strictly by botanical identity. The result is a fascinating, informative yet still beautiful display. The sleek, elegant glasshouse — the largest single-span one in the UK, designed by Foster + Partners — gleams in the sun like a giant multifaceted convex contact lens on the crest of a hill. A tropical butterfly house has recently opened, too.
£9.55/£4.50; gardenofwales.org.uk

52 Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal Water Garden
North Yorkshire
Great summer gardens need not rely on flower colour for their appeal. Studley is a lesson in tasteful restraint. The emphasis at this Unesco World Heritage Site is on evergreen structure, well-proportioned views punctuated with trees, statuary and vast reflective pools of water slicing through broad swathes of lawn. It’s cool and calming on a hot day, and the majestic ruins of Fountains Abbey increase the sense of drama.
£13.60/£6.80; nationaltrust.org.uk