Every week the staff here at Exbury will be compiling their must-sees in the gardens, focusing on different areas or seasonal plants. We hope that you will be able to use this as a snappy guide when visiting and that our favourite viewpoints, blooms and garden features might become your favourites too.
Focus 26th April: Home Wood and The Glades, azaleas, rhododendrons and acers
Our top pick to visit this week is Home Wood, specifically The Glades that sweep from Daffodil Meadow through to Exbury House. This area gives fantastic and unique outlooks of the south side of Exbury House and is a haven for magnificent Cedars of Lebanon, lofty rhododendrons and bright and bountiful azaleas.
This area is so dramatic in its outlook, we could have spent all day here taking photographs. Here are a couple more that demonstrate the beauty and drama of this area of Exbury Gardens:
Our world-famous azalea collection is beginning to bloom and is currently creating stunning walls of colour lining some of the paths.
The shrubs pictured above are located on the principal path just north of Top Pond, but many can be found blooming at the moment in many areas of Exbury Gardens.
Not only is Exbury world-famous for its azaleas, but even more so for its rhododendron collection, which includes many rare hybrids created right here at Exbury. Some of our rhododendron specimens are around 100 years old and hark back to great plant hunting expeditions funded by Exbury's founder Lionel de Rotshchild. Rhododedrons are beginning to flower in almost all areas of the gardens at the moment.
The specimens photographed above were found close to the Cedars of Lebanon by The Glades and are surrounded by beautiful magnolias, those below are on the principal path by Mrs Lionel's Seat.
Below we have Rhododendron 'Unique' with its almost-iridescent petals, located between the Wiggly Tree and Mrs Lionel's Seat; a large pink rhododendron, located on The Glades; Rhododendron 'Sappho', which arches over a small grass path between The Glades and the principal path by Top Pond.
Exbury has an extensive Acer collection and these are really starting to show their spring vibrance at the moment. In particular, the acer pictured above, which is located at the entrance to Top Pond, is a favourite with our visitors at the moment as a backdrop to take their photographs.
Below we have four other specimens that are looking particularly lovely at the moment, but you will see acers like these throughout the gardens as they are a core backdrop to the rhododendron and azalaea collection.
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Exbury Gardens, The Estate Office
Exbury, Southampton, Hampshire, SO45 1AZ
+44 (0)23 8089 1203
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