Alongside some of the North West’s best countryside walking trails and Green Flag parks, Greater Manchester unassumingly hosts an astonishingly diverse selection of achingly beautiful botanical gardens and landscaped grounds, each providing a restorative sun-drenched reprieve from the urban summer frenzy with a variety of rare flowers, thriving wildlife and world-renowned horticultural arrangements.
Here are the best botanical gardens around the region.
Reclaming its thoroughly deserved place as a cornerstone of our city’s architectural and industrial history, the 330-metre-long Grade II-listed Castlefield Viaduct now stands amidst Manchester’s glittering skyscrapers as a ‘garden in the sky’, offering a uniquely beautiful perspective on urban horticulture with a long path flanked by a captivating variety of plant life, from swaying corn crops to delicate seasonal flowers.
Book your visit below.
Previously awarded the prestigious Green Flag Award, which recognises community-focused, well-managed and biodiverse public recreational areas, Sale’s hidden gem provides sanctuary from the thrumming traffic of Marsland Road with an intricate botanical labyrinth marbled through with winding trails and dedicated garden ‘rooms’, alongside a spellbinding Japanese Garden. At its centre, the Theatre Lawn regularly hosts outdoor productions for up to 500 people.
Open to public visitors since 1915, the beloved South Manchester idyll offers serene strolls of varying lengths amidst gorgeous unspoilt woodland, open grassland and an extensive array of wildlife, with a stretch of the Mersey carving through its lush meadows.
Visitors to Fletcher Moss and Parsonage Gardens can enjoy a rejuvenating morning or a hazy afternoon spent wandering the award-winning landscape, with endless nature trails on offer alongside an abundance of wildlife including summer birds, butterflies and others.
Described by the City Council as ‘the jewel in the crown’, Parsonage Gardens features a staggeringly diverse collection of flora, from alpine plants and rare trees to colourful butterflies and immaculately kept English flowerbeds.
Find out more below.
Running as part of the National Garden Scheme, 64 Carrwood in Hale Barns boasts two-thirds of an acre’s worth of landscaped garden overlooking the elysian Bollin Valley, and visitors to this tranquil private residence can stop in on regular open days for a meander through immaculately kept woodland or sit amidst the vibrant collection of year-round shrubs and flowers.
Check below for upcoming opening dates during the summer with 64 Carrwood in full bloom.
- Words:
- Wolf McFarlane
- Published on:
- Fri 31 May 2024
A jaw-dropping revival of Worsley New Hall’s historic 154 acre grounds, RHS Bridgewater showcases its breathtaking horticultural grandeur as one of the most impressive botanical gardens in the country.
Boasting a series of walled gardens brimming with vivid wildflowers, endless unspoilt woodlands, magnificently preserved architecture, play areas and even a serene Chinese Streamside space, RHS Bridgewater invites seasoned nature-lovers and blossoming botanists alike to marvel at the vast selection of plant life and fascinating local history in Greater Manchester’s famed natural haven.
Become a member, book your visit and check out RHS Bridgewater’s incredible events programme below.