Bonython Estate Gardens

Bonython is a privately owned garden on the Lizard peninsula, and its owners have remodelled it in recent years with plenty of bold, modern planting inside a traditional Cornish estate. Allow time to follow the whole route, because the garden changes character several times as you go.

You start near the Georgian manor house, which is not open to the public, with a contemporary water feature behind it. From there the path leads into the eighteenth-century walled garden, where the herbaceous borders are colour-themed, and on to a traditional potager with vegetables and flowers for picking, plus an orchard of Cornish apple varieties. These are the areas home gardeners will learn most from, especially for planning borders by colour and mixing crops with cut flowers.

Beyond the walled garden the route crosses parkland to a series of small lakes in a sheltered valley, with a stream cascade. Each lake has its own mood. The first is calm, with specimen trees and shrubs reflected in the water. The second is hot and bright, with a South African summer garden of ornamental grasses, cannas, rudbeckias and proteas. The third is cool and mysterious, a quarry lake with creeper-clad cliffs, a fernery and bamboos. In spring there are traditional Cornish rhododendrons and azaleas, woodland flowers and bulbs. Dogs are welcome on a lead, and the estate also has holiday cottages if you want to explore the Lizard coves and coast paths nearby.