Gardens to visit in spring and summer – Plas Newydd

This Welsh garden of thirty-one acres has both parkland and garden in an interesting mix of informal and formal influences. It’s particularly good to visit in spring, because Plas Newydd’s major horticultural glory is its massive plantings of mostly spring-flowering trees and shrubs. The Rhododendron Garden, about half a mile north of the house, was begun in woodland in the late 1930s and the site was chosen because it is near the Menai Strait and the Gulf Stream, both warm water currents around Anglesey, which allow the cultivation of many otherwise frost-tender shrubs.

The principal shrub garden to the south of the house is known as the ‘West Indies’. It adopts an informal design with islands of massive plantings of flowering shrubs around lawns. Things to watch out for include massed naturalistic displays of azaleas, camellias, magnolias and hydrangeas. The Australasian Arboretum features a large collection of eucalyptus trees, and an under-shrubbery of perennials and wildflowers

The only formal part of the garden is the Italianate Terrace Garden, located almost alongside the house. It too overlooks the Menai Strait and a lawned area that slopes down to the sea wall, at either side of which there is naturalised woodland enriched with evergreen trees, including Scots firs and Cypress.

Should the weather be bad, which is not unusual in this area, a military museum in the house contains campaign relics of the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, who commanded the cavalry at the Battle of Waterloo. Something to note – because the parking area is more than four hundred yards from the house, there's a complimentary minibus and shuttle service to the house and gardens!

Plas Newydd photograph by davelynne, used under a creative commons attribution licence

 

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