The charms of a pastoral fancy have long been indisputable – whether it’s Wedgwood china festooned with sugar-pink roses, or huge sprays of peonies and hydrangeas painted on de Gournay walls, not to mention all those white lacy flowers embroidered on Simone Rocha creations.
However, nothing compares to the natural high of witnessing the world’s most beautiful gardens in full bloom, even if only for a fleeting week or two. An Eden all year round, but exceptionally verdant in March, Sri Lanka has a siren call that’s hard to resist. It is worth making a horticultural pilgrimage to Lunuganga, a 1930s bungalow on the former cinnamon-plantation estate of renowned architect Geoffrey Bawa.
Now a living museum/hotel, it remains one of the most spectacular gardens in all Sri Lanka – slightly Italianate in style, filled with shady arbours and secret follies, Roman busts and statues choked in vines. In the height of spring, the statement frangipani tree has been pruned into a picture of grace.
You will also notice bells hanging in the trees, a trademark of Bawa, who would ring them to let his staff know where to bring him a G&T – most likely in the Black Pavilion, beside a butterfly-shaped pond where dragonflies skim between the lily pads. Today, you can still ring for a sundowner there – and perhaps speak to one of the gardeners, some of whom have looked after the grounds since Bawa’s day.
Outdoor dining at Dar Ahlam, Morocco (Image credit: Dar Ahlam)
When Japan’s cherry-blossom season rolls around in March, Kyoto is perennially popular, especially for its Zen rock gardens, now best experienced through the new Six Senses retreat – a deeply relaxing and cultured space in the city’s Higashiyama district and close to the Myoho-in Temple.
In late spring, you want to be at the gloriously lavish Villa d’Este, described by Edith Wharton as “one of the most enchanting bits of sylvan gardening in Italy”. For just over two weeks towards the end of April, the phenomenon of “wisteria hysteria” abounds, an operatic floral display that all but eclipses glittering Lake Como.
There are few culinary experiences that can rival dining at the Veranda restaurant, in the shade of the chestnut trees’ first bloom, with the shore at your feet. Elsewhere, the palest lilac petals tumble down old stone walls, as lichen-covered statues gaze on guests as they perambulate along the pristine lawns and flower beds of the exquisite nymphaeum of Villa d’Este.
Dar Ahlam, a 200-year-old kasbah near Marrakesh (Image credit: Dar Ahlam)
Meanwhile, in Morocco, April and May herald the sensory overload and perfumed splendour of rose season, with a festival celebrating the Valley of Roses, near Skoura. Stay at the Dar Ahlam hotel, a restored 19th-century kasbah that is home to its own collection of divine Damascus roses.
The gardens here – cleverly designed by landscape maestro Louis Benech, who was involved in revamping the Jardin des Tuileries – resemble some sort of prelapsarian paradise. In the UK, RHS Chelsea Flower Show heralds the start of “the summer season”, when you’ll want to be in one of the country’s storybook gardens enjoying its languid peace, sitting on a shimmering lawn with a Pimm’s or a pot of Lapsang Souchong, preferably.
Hotel Endsleigh in West Devon is set in 100 acres of fairy tale gardens, woodlands, follies and grottos created by Humphry Repton (Image credit: Hotel Endsleigh)
The Rose walk at Hotel Endsleigh (Image credit: Hotel Endsleigh)
In London, squirrel yourself away in The Goring hotel’s secret garden, with its perfectly ironed lawn and beds of lily of the valley and Duke of Edinburgh roses. Another well-established and picturesque spot is Hotel Endsleigh in Devon, especially around the solstice, when there is an Arcadian joy in exploring its grounds at dusk, with follies, waterfalls and an enchanting Rose Walk taking on the patina of a true midsummer night’s dream.
This summer, The Pig hotels will reopen Barnsley House in the Cotswolds (the former home of one of the 20th century’s most celebrated horticulturists, Rosemary Verey), where the topiary and box-edged beds should remain intact – alongside, no doubt, a fabulous potager garden.
The Jardin de l’Orangerie at Château de Versailles (Image credit: Chateau de Versailles)
And in the autumn, you need to be somewhere that’s unrivalled in the momentous stakes, somewhere that positively radiates glamour. To step into the fountain-studded grounds of Versailles is to be time-warped back to King Louis XIV’s heyday, where you can still admire the symmetrical brilliance of André Le Nôtre’s magnificent gardens. For character, theatrical grandeur and romance, these gardens have no peer.
Accommodation-wise, setting the scene is Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle, overlooking the Orangery parterre. Here, the after-hours access is outstanding and one could happily spend days strolling undisturbed, taking in the magical sight of rows and rows of linden and chestnut trees turning completely golden, and the statues of Venus, Hercules and Ariadne appearing everywhere in silent greeting.