Re-launch of Britain's Finest Gardens with Interactive Google Mapping and a Monthly Column from Stephen Anderton

We are delighted to announce the re-launch of Britain's Finest Gardens, http://www.britainsfinest.co.uk/gardens, with interactive Google Mapping and a monthly column from Stephen Anderton. Britain's Finest Gardens features over 300 special gardens to visit throughout Britain, carefully selected by The Times's gardener and broadcaster Stephen Anderton.

(PRWEB) May 9, 2007 -- Britain's Finest Gardens, http://www.britainsfinest.co.uk/gardens, features over 300 special gardens to visit throughout Britain, carefully selected by The Times's gardener and broadcaster Stephen Anderton. Included are gardens of every size and kind, from parkland to cottage gardens, from botanic to flower gardens, from topiary to rock gardens, from arboretums to woodland gardens, from sculpture to modern gardens and from walled to landscape gardens. Many of these gardens have restaurants and plant stores.

Stephen Anderton in his monhtly column expores ideas for garden visitors and his piece for May is set out below.

May 07 Rhododendrons

Love them or hate them, there is nothing so dramatic as rhododendrons, whether they are in a garden of half an acre or 50 acres; eyes pop and jaws drop at the sheer volume of those gaudy colours. As the climate changes and the seasons speed up, early May is most definitely the time to see them at their peak this year, so put on your sunglasses and go see them. Am I joking? Not at all: a great bank of rhododendrons actually looks amazing under a Polaroid, Hollywood haze. Try it.

Rhododendrons and their perfumed sister azaleas will only perform where there is acid soil, so you won't find them on chalk downs or limestone dales. But you will find them by the greedy gardenful in places where they do well.

Draw a line, for instance, in a great loop around Gatwick and Heathrow and see what you see. In the west there's the famous Valley Gardens at Windsor where you can wander for hours under day-glow rhodos. In the south there is a great cluster of aristocratic gardens riddled with rhodos ; Leonardslee, Border Hill and more. On the south coast there's the great azalea garden Exbury.

Head west into Cornwall, home of those seaside ravine gardens, and you'll find rhodos galore at Heligan, Trebah and Trewithen (funny how so many Cornish gardens begin with a Tre…).

Travel up the west coast of Scotland and rhodo gardens sprout again; here for a change they begin with an A - Achamore, Achnacloich, Ardkinglas….

Down in northwest England rhodos burst out again in the Lake District at Holker Hall and Muncaster Castle, and further south again at Cholmondeley Castle in Cheshire. Show-stoppers all. And the great thing about rhododendron gardens is that usually they can grow all those wonderful, big, woodland-garden shrubs too - dogwoods, stewartias, eucryphias, camellias, magnolias, the lot. They can have it all and they usually do.

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