This year, gardens big and small throughout Cheshire are helping celebrate the county’s wonderful horticultural heritage.

Cheshire’s Year of Gardens 2008 will present 12 months of  fabulous flowers, beautiful  blooms and lots more besides. All the Trust’s Cheshire gardens are taking part – here are some highlights. You can also check out the full programme by visiting www.yearofgardens08.com

Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, Cheshire


© NTPL / Alan Novelli

As part of Cheshire Year of Gardens 2008, the National Trust is opening its newly restored 18th-century garden at Quarry Bank Mill. The Trust acquired the garden in November 2006 after it had been in careful private ownership for four decades. Since then volunteers have worked to bring the 18th-century ‘picturesque’ valley garden back to life.

Hare Hill Garden, Over Alderley, Nr Macclesfield

© NTPL / Alan Novelli

A ‘hidden gem’, Hare Hill is a small, but perfectly formed wooded and walled garden. A place of peace and tranquillity set in the heart of Cheshire, the garden is especially spectacular in early summer. Planting includes azaleas, rhododendrons, hollies and hostas. At its heart is a delightful walled area with pergola and unusual wire sculptures, and the surrounding parkland has attractive walks, including a link path to Alderley Edge (2 miles).

Dunham Massey, Altrincham


© NTPL / Nick Meers

One of the North West’s great plantsman’s gardens, Dunham’s garden contains richly planted borders and majestic trees, an orangery, Victorian bark house and well house. The garden, which is hosting an outdoor theatre season summer as part of Cheshire’s Year of Gardens celebrations, contains a remarkable variety of ground cover in its woodland and waterside planting.

Amongst its unusual trees and shrubs are a unique collection of azaleas and good collections of hydrangeas and skimmias. Look out for flowering highlights during the year including

• April/May – Bluebells
• May/June – Himalayan Blue Poppies
• May/June – Late flowering Pratt Azaleas
• July – Cardiocrinum (giant lilies)
• August/September – Hydrangeas

Lyme Park, nr Disley, Stockport


© NTPL / Alan Novelli

Lyme Park’s 17 acre Victorian garden is primarily a terraced, formal garden set amongst 1,400 acres of moorland, woodland and parkland. Key features include a reflection lake, the 19th-century Orangery; and the Dutch Garden and East Terrace with their associated high Victorian bedding schemes.

There is also an Edwardian Rose Garden which was replanted last year (2007), and a ravine garden. The garden also boasts the national collection of Vicary Gibbs plants. There are also refurbished Graham Stewart Thomas mixed and herbaceous borders and a rare Lewis Wyatt garden.

As part of Cheshire Year of Gardens, Lyme will be hosing a series of outdoor theatre productions in the garden during the summer season, and on Sunday afternoons during June and July, visitors will be entertained to ‘Brass and Blooms’ - a series of informal concerts in a specially constructed bandstand, and given by local bands and school groups.

Little Moreton Hall, Nr Congleton

© NTPL / Rupert Truman

The Tudor Knot Garden at Cheshire’s most iconic building, Little Moreton Hall lies on the site of a 17th-century garden about which we know very little. Several types of fruit tree were grown in the orchard which forms part of the garden, including plum trees and a bergamot pear. The rest of the garden, in typical 17th-century fashion, was divided into quarters, and the quarters into beds.

The present Knot Garden and Yew Tunnel were laid out in 1972 and although no Knot garden survived intact from the 16th and 17th centuries, the one at Little Moreton is based on a design in 'The English Gardener', published by Leonard Meager in 1670, although it is probably Elizabethan in origin.

It is based in the form of an 'open knot', ie gravel is used in the spaces between the Dwarf Box hedges. In the borders at each end of the knot, set out in a regular pattern, are many period flowering plants, some of which are good forms of native species. On the north and east sides of the Knot Garden are four beds which are now planted with vegetables and herbs of the Elizabethan period. In the orchard today are planted apple, pear, medlar and quince trees.

In celebration of Cheshire’s Year of Gardens, Little Moreton will be exhibiting  ‘Something Beautiful' - a unique piece of sculpture in the orchard created by artist Justine Cook, which takes the viewer on a journey through Little Moreton’s long history.