The winter garden is really coming into its own. The frost or mist only adds to the atmosphere as you wind through paths flanked with vibrant colour combinations of bark and stems, sweet “wow” scents, pops of colour from hellebores and witch hazels, frosty swaying grasses and sharply defined topiary. It’s the best time of year to see structure with the low winter light casting its own quiet spell. It’s official: winter is no longer just about snowdrops.
Here are some of our best winter gardens, so wrap up warm (and pack a Thermos) for a cold weather treat.
Go for the stunning colour combinations and scent.
This is the garden where I discovered how beautiful winter can be, and I have gone back many times since. The Winter Walk includes brilliant stems of dogwood and willow, in colours ranging from black to bright yellow and fiery red, clipped evergreens, and ghostly white bark. Early flowering bulbs include the greater snowdrop ‘Mrs Macnamara’.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25), 9.30am-4pm; from £13.25 (rhs.org.uk)
2. Stone Lane Gardens, Devon
Go for the many coloured beauty of birch bark.
This exceptional five-acre woodland and water garden in the northeast corner of Dartmoor is the home of the National Collection of wild-origin birches. It has 69 taxa of birch, with an amazing array of bark colours and texture, and about 1,000 trees in total in its arboretum. An RHS Partner Garden that also has a nursery.
Details Open Thu-Mon, 10am-6pm; £8 (stonelanegardens.com)
3. Rousham, Oxfordshire 
Rousham was created by the architect and landscape designer William Kent in the late 1730s
ALAMY
Go for sweeping vistas and tranquillity.
Heralded as the best surviving 18th-century garden in Britain, Rousham was created by the architect and landscape designer William Kent in the late 1730s. It has remained in private hands and is renowned for its transcendent atmosphere and stunning views. It has been much in the news lately as its protected views and historic spirit will be affected by a proposed 9,000 home housing estate at Heyford Park. No children under 15 allowed, so enjoy the quiet.
Details Open daily, 10am-dusk; £10 (rousham.org)
• How to bring magic to a winter garden
4. Blickling Estate, Norfolk
A frosty early morning at the Blickling Estate in Norfolk
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/ROB COLEMAN
Go for the hellebores.
Head for the winter garden, tucked away behind the Orangery, to see the display of hellebores and to smell the daphne. Enjoy the topiary and lake walks, as well as the Wilderness wood that was first planted as part of the Jacobean garden. Early daffs bring colour to the Temple Walk.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-25), 10am-4pm; £17 nationaltrust.org.uk
5. Cambridge University Botanic Garden, Cambridgeshire
Go for colour and innovative planting.
This was the first dedicated winter garden to be established in a botanic garden in the UK, in 1979, and it remains committed to being at the forefront of winter planting. Highlights include colourful stems, scent and variegated evergreens.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-Jan 1), 10am-5pm; £8.80 (botanic.cam.ac.uk)
6. RHS Garden Rosemoor, Devon 
Garden Rosemoor is designed to maximize the effect of the low winter sun
RHS
Go for top designer Jo Thompson’s stunning new winter garden.
An inspirational design that has been carefully aligned to the low angle of the winter sun, allowing light to catch on bark (white, pink, gold), sculptural branches and seedheads. Thompson, who is renowned for creating a romantic atmosphere, has used a planting pallet of silvers, russets and greens.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25), 10am-5pm; from £13.25 (rhs.org.uk)
• The expert’s favourite plants for fabulous winter containers
7. Cambo Gardens, Fife 
Go for the woodland walks and early snowdrops.
There are a series of winter gardens here, including a woodland edge with birches, dogwoods and perennials. It holds the National Plant Collection of snowdrops, with some 300 varieties, some of them very early indeed.
Details Open daily (except Dec 22-26), 10am-4pm; £7.70 (cambogardens.org.uk)
8. Hever Castle, Kent
Hever Castle was created in the early 1990s
VIKKI RIMMER
Go for the spectacular setting and quirky topiary.
Hever Castle’s Winter Garden, created in the early 1990s, has been reimagined over the last couple of years with fragrant planting, hellebores and early daffs such as ‘Early Sensation’. Try the maze (not easy). I love the topiary here and this year the garden’s well-known octopus has been brought back to life.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-25 and Jan 3-Feb 11); £21.50 (hevercastle.co.uk)
9. Kew Gardens, Richmond
Kew’s winter garden has been extended this year
INES STUART-DAVIDSON/ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW
Go for the sheer expanse of it all — and the Palm House.
The winter garden, which has brilliant views of the Temperate House and the Great Pagoda, has been extended this year, offering shady winter-interest planting including fiery witch hazel and dogwood, and delicious scents including sweet box and wintersweet. Another highlight is Holly Walk, which has Europe’s largest collection. You may also want to pop into the Palm House (which is due for a refurb in 2027).
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-25), 10am to dusk; from £16 (kew.org)
10. Sissinghurst Castle, Kent
The White Garden at Sissinghurst Castle Garden
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/JOHN MILL
Go for its perfect structure and quiet beauty.
It’s a special time to visit this gardener’s garden, created by Harold and Vita Sackville-West from the 1930s, and especially to appreciate the structure and how the hedges set of the winter planting. The White Garden is a beauty any time of year with Christmas box, hellebores and lambs ears. In winter, Rosa ‘Mulliganii’, a rarely grown rambler from Yunnan, creates a delicate threadwork pattern over the arbour.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-25), 11am-4pm; £13 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
• 6 ways to prepare your garden for winter
11. Holehird Gardens, Cumbria
Go for the spectacular view and garden inspiration.
This ten-acre fellside garden managed by the Lakeland Horticultural Society has views over Windermere, plus a winter border that includes the divinely scented paperbush, Edgeworthia chrysantha ‘Red Dragon’, as well as hellebores, pulmonarias and the early flowering Narcissus ‘Cedric Morris’.
Details Open daily, dawn-dusk; suggested donation £6 (holehirdgardens.org.uk)
12. Trentham, Staffordshire
Winter planting at Trentham in Staffordshire
GAP PHOTOS/RON EVANS – DESIGNED BY PIETER OUDOLF
Go for the magical atmosphere, wonderful structure and stunning range of hellebores.
These gardens have enjoyed a spectacular rejuvenation over recent times with planting schemes by Tom Stuart-Smith, Nigel Dunnett, Piet Oudolf and the like. Hellebores, featured in the woodland meadow scheme as well as the Oudolf shrub borders, include oriental hybrids in rich golds, russet oranges, crimsons, pinks, whites, greens and nearly black. The Italianate Gardens are stunning when dusted with snow.
Details Open daily (except for Dec 25), 9.30am-4pm; £10.35 (trentham.co.uk)
13. Stowe, Buckinghamshire 
Take in vistas galore at Stowe
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/HUGH MOTHERSOLE
Go for the sheer huge size of it all — and the follies.
This is gardening on an extremely grand scale and, in winter, the carefully balanced structure of its 250 acres designed by William Kent and Capability Brown can be seen at its best. Take in vistas galore, plus temples, pillars, fanes, grottoes, bridges and more.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-25), 10am-4pm; £17 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
14. Plas Brondanw, Gwynedd
Go for Arts and Crafts style and some quirky features.
This garden, which lies between the mountains and the sea in Eryri National Park (Snowdonia), belonged to Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, the famous 20th-century architect who is best known for Portmeirion, the brightly coloured, Italianate-style village perched on the coast four miles from here. He created an Arts and Crafts wonder at Plas Brondanw, with fantastical topiary and impressive hedging demarking its “rooms”. There’s also some fun to be had here — among the classical statuary is a mini fireman with a working hose.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-Jan 2), 10-4pm; £7.50 (plasbrondanw.org)
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15. Chatsworth, Derbyshire
Go for the river walk and to soak up Capability Brown’s landscape.
The garden surrounding the house (the pinetum is a particular winter favourite) is closed from early January but the surrounding 1,000 acres of parkland is open to all (and free) for walks, up hill and dale, or along the Derwent River.
Details Open daily to Jan 4 (except Dec 24-26), 10.30am-6pm; £24 (chatsworth.org)
16. Lost Gardens of Heligan, Cornwall
The Mud Maid sculpture in the Lost Gardens of Heligan
Go to walk through a jungle in the rain and early camellias.
A great garden for exploring which in winter includes forced paperwhites, emerging hellebores and early ‘Gloire de Nantes’ camellias, which can start to bloom as early as November. Visit the hide to see birdlife and experience the UK’s only outdoor jungle in the rain, a temperate rainforest, with its vast array of rain loving plants, lichens and fungi.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25), 10am-3pm, £28 (heligan.com)
17. Bodnant Garden, Conwy
The Winter Garden at Bodnant Garden
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/PAUL HARRIS
Go for the circular walk through the winter garden.
There are 80 acres of landscaped gardens here, including an established winter garden, with an easy-to-access trail. The tall grasses look particularly good in winter and the garden is full of vibrant colour, form and scent. Great views of the Conwy valley.
Details Open daily (except Dec 24-26), 10am-4pm; £18 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
18. Osterley Park, Middlesex
Go for colour (and frosted berries) to cheer you up on grey days.
The National Trust manages 356 acres here and the winter garden is especially geared towards providing colour and interest with hellebores, bright dogwood stems, seedheads and the creamy white flowers of Clematis urophylla ‘Winter Beauty’.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25-26), 10am-4pm; £6.80 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
19. Ardkinglas, Argyll
Go for its immense conifers and red squirrels.
On the shore of Loch Fyne, the gardens include the 25-acre pinetum which is now home for a number of champion trees, the tallest or broadest of their species in Britain (which includes a 64m grand fir). Go forest bathing (so to speak) and look out for the red squirrels and pine martens that live here too.
Details Open daily, dawn-dusk; £5 (ardkinglas.com)
20. Dunham Massey, Cheshire 
Dunham Massey has seven acres of gardens to explore
NATIONAL TRUST IMAGES/JONATHAN BUCKLEY
Go for the huge variety on show in the largest winter garden in the country.
The winter garden here is seven acres, with wide paths that wind through the borders, designed with the help of Roy Lancaster. It includes more than 1,600 shrubs, trees and evergreens.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25), 10am-3.30pm; £10 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
21. Mount Stewart, Co Down
Go for the pops of colour and a lakeside walk.
The microclimate here allows plants to grow that are not found anywhere else on this latitude. Enjoy scented shrubs, from sweet to spicy and exotic, and winter blooms of pinks, yellows, golds, oranges and blood reds. There’s also a lakeside walk and the Sunk Garden to explore.
Details Open daily (except Dec 25-26), noon-4pm; £15 (nationaltrust.org.uk)
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