The early cold snap delayed magnolia flowering

 

Cornwall in spring, verges full of primroses, pheasants scrapping in the lanes, a wild blue yonder sea view around every bend – it's a Famous Five setting, the kind of place where you might have an adventure, but still be completely safe.

There's the gardener's version of ''I spy'' to play, spotting the exotics – pink bergenias in banks, frilly showbench daffodils posing in hedges. They may irk the ecologically minded, but give the county an atmosphere of botanical jauntiness and open the eye to surprises: early spring coincides with the roadside flowers of alexanders, Smyrnium olusatrum, an angelica-like plant that the Romans used like celery.

 

Our pallid party of two garden visitors, from spring-starved London and west of Scotland, was prepared for the worst by headlines of snow damage and late flowering, and the looming threat of the Phytophthora pathogen. But all seems business as usual. This county of interconnected family estates has a long history of forward-thinking, serious horticulture. Plant collectors from William Lobb to Frank Kingdon-Ward and George Forrest have all been active here, and it takes more than the worst winter in two decades (-7 degrees C), to knock back tree and shrub collections managed over many years.

 

The great Cornish showpieces – magnolias, camellias and rhododendrons – held back by the early cold snap, are building to a crescendo this year as spring comes all at once.

 

We were guests of The Nare hotel (see below), which offers spring gardening breaks.

 

Trewithen

Occupying high ground rather than a typical Cornish ravine, an 18th-century landscape of ancient beech avenues radiates out from the east and north sides of the property. The 20th-century garden of magnolias, rhododendrons and camellias to the south and west is the work of George Johnstone, who inherited Trewithen in 1904. He was a serious collector of plants (the garden has 20 champion trees), but he also orchestrated a famous vista with ''wow'' factor. Centred on the south front of the house, a broad lawn snakes gently for more than 120 yards, flanked by a red, pink and white haze of rhododendrons, camellias and magnolias such as the M. campbellii subsp. mollicomata, a mass of pink on naked stems for our visit. Woodland edges billow with colour: 'Cornish Red' rhododendrons are first to break, a collection of reticulata camellias filling in later.

 

Head gardener Gary Long says this year the earliest magnolia is 37 days later than usual. The resulting concentration of blooms has produced a magnolia moment (as Stephen Lacey also notes, right), with show-stopping cloudbursts of candyfloss pink overhead.

 

There are many facets to Trewithen – an old cockpit arena studded with tree ferns dating from the 1900s, a new rose garden just planted, a 10-acre pinetum in the planning, the restoration of the water garden - and there is still the mystery of the lost 150 daffodil hybrids bred by Johnstone in the Fifties to be unravelled.

www.trewithengardens.co.uk

Tregothnan

Tregothnan, the family seat of the Viscounts Falmouth, lies at the head of a valley, its Repton deer park flanking a clear view down the valley to the River Fal where enormous bulk carriers lie moored and empty. These signs of the economic times contrast with the Victorian spirit of enterprise at Tregothnan – a ''luxury brand'' of tea, manuka infusion and honey, kea plum jam (from trees indigenous only to the estate) and bespoke furniture.

But the hub of the garden is to the east, the largest private botanic garden in Britain, an important collection of wild-collected trees and shrubs, and a guided tour with head gardener Jonathon Jones is a must. On prominent display is the ''dinosaur'' wollemi pine, the first in captivity in Britain, in its own green gauze cage. This is the forerunner of a 70-strong wollemi grove. Inspired ideas continue: a maze of pink Camellia x williamsii 'Laura Boscawen', a South American valley complete with boardwalk over red-flowering giant rhubarb, and designer Robert Myers has been at work on a formal grass parterre, a summer house overlooking the tea plantation, and a new peony house.

Jones constantly tests plants for their commercial potential. He found that a smart aromatic evergreen, Drimys lanceolata, goes down well with florists (sold as Tregothnan pepper leaf), likewise Pieris japonica 'Little Heath Green'. Others plants are simply collector's items: ''Rare because no one likes them,'' as Jones says, tenderly stroking a brown New Zealand conifer easily mistaken for a dead thing. Still in the planning is an avenue of autumn-flowering Camellia sasanqua.

www.tregothnan.co.uk

Lamorran Gardens

After the sprawling woodland ambience of the first two gardens, Lamorran is a contrast. Owner Robert Dudley-Cooke has created a sequence of intimate protected gardens that cascade down a four-acre, sea-facing slope via a winding path system. Trees and shrubs are the focus, evergreens the backbone.

He started with a childhood love of Japanese gardens, then moved to a Mediterranean palette. The green tranquillity of pools and rocky grottoes unite the two styles, with Japanese acers sited in the most protected areas. Architectural follies and exotic palms entwined with 20 different jasmines evoke the most romantic gardens of the Mediterranean.

A seasoned gardener when he arrived in Cornwall, Dudley-Cooke avoided the obvious: "When people retire down here you hear the chainsaws going as they saw down every last tree in the garden to open up the sea view – then they come here and say 'our grass is brown, what's wrong with it?' In this garden you have to go and find the sea view." By planting trees rather than chopping them down, he created the sheltered microclimate that makes Lamorran subtropical. The views, across the water to St Anthony's Head lighthouse, are taken care of at intervals with a theatrical flourish, via a circular stone cupola, a rustic archway, or gothic Venetian ''windows''.

Skimmia japonica and a collection of evergreen satsuki azaleas form the understorey, with palms Phoenix canariensis (a favourite), Butia capitata ("should be more widely used") punctuating and Chamaerops humilis self-seeding freely. An Acacia dealbata reaches more than 30ft, black tree ferns (Cyathea medullaris), tender rhododendrons and New Zealand conifers (Dacrydium cupressinum) are rarities. In sunny spots, grevilleas, gazanias and agapanthus bloom. On the terrace, citrus in planters and tender wall shrubs wait for visitors.

www.lamorrangardens.co.uk

The Nare Hotel

The Nare hotel offers the kind of comfort you need after a bracing day of garden visits. The appearance of a hot water bottle with turn-down service is a typical homely touch. The hotel's Spring Garden Breaks start at £519 per person for a four night stay, and include tickets and a guided tour to three gardens of your choice (01872 501111; www.narehotel.co.uk).

So many gardens, so little time

We also looked in on these gardens:

Caerhays (www.caerhays.co.uk) The grey castle walls were beautifully softened by a haze of ice cream-pink magnolias in the hillside terraces behind; the courtyard shelters the original williamsii camellias.

Heligan (www.heligan.com) The original ''lost'' garden, Heligan's treasured Victorian kitchen garden has come full circle to positively cutting edge. New in the actual sense is the wildlife project – a pond and woodland edge of shrubs and trees where visitors can sit in hides and watch wild birds clustering on the feeders. Hannibal the barn owl, via CCTV, has a devoted following.

Trebah (www.trebah-garden.co.uk) Another tourist hot spot, Trebah has a new, swanky £1.5 million Malaysian-inspired visitor centre. Scale is what impresses here – off a lawn edged with yellow Acacia pravissima a vast ravine rolls down to the sea, through tree ferns, the Bamboozle maze (look for Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda, with knuckle-like stems and linear leaf), and a Jurassic gunnera swamp at the end. Especially fun for children who can play hide and seek all the way down to the beach.