After a cold overnight frost, it was a dry, bright, and sunny morning with a cool northerly light breeze. As it was a nice morning, we headed north up the A1 motorway to Harrogate for a walk around the gardens at RHS Harlow Carr. Looking through my diary although I have been to Harrogate several times since Christmas, today was only our second visit to these beautiful gardens on the outskirts of the town.

We arrived just after 10.00am, the car parks looked quite busy, but we only had a short queue at the visitor’s reception. On leaving the reception area we headed through the glass doors and down the steps where we stopped to admire a fleet of electric mobility scooters lined up and available to hire from the reception desk. The flowering heathers to our right looked bright and radiant, the purples, reds, golds, and rustic colours looked an absolute picture, as well as a ready food source for the insects and bees.

As always, the views across the gardens down towards the stream always catches the eye and on a bright and sunny morning looks extra special. The deciduous Himalayan Birch to our right looked amazing; its tree bark almost white in colour, the tree produces long brown catkins in the spring and its foliage is equally noticeable in the Autumn when its leaves turn a beautiful yellow colour.

We followed our usual clockwise route over towards the lakeside gardens, the rockery adjacent to Betty’s restaurant was starting to look colourful, with lots of purple-coloured Primulas popping up all over the place and small purple beds of flowering heather. Beds of daffodils were swaying gently on the lawned areas along with Cowslips and primulas. Hellebores in the borders were in full flower too, the purple and white florets thriving on the cold nights and bright daytime sunshine. An Easter Egg trail was set up for the Easter holidays with giant sized Eggs dotted around the gardens, lots of children and grandchildren were running around in earnest with their maps and quiz sheets trying to find all the eggs, which looked great fun. A new footpath had been laid from the sunken Victorian garden, leading to the Thaliana Bridge and the surrounding borders landscaped. A lot of other work was being carried out in this area so it will be exciting to watch how the area develops throughout the year.  Crossing the footbridge, we stopped to watch a pair of Canada geese gracefully gliding across the water, along with a pair of Moorhens and several Mallard ducks. The water was almost flat calm, the only ripples caused by the wildlife on the surface. After walking around the ‘Queen Mothers Lake’ we followed the ’Streamside path’ towards ‘the Old Bath house’ huge swathes of Daffodils filled the borders along with clumps of Primula Denticulata, several ‘Crown Imperials’ and lots of ‘Summer Snowflake’ all adding some colour to the banks of the stream. Small clusters of ‘Erythronium revolutum, Primula Denticulata and miniature Daffodils in the Rookery at the side of the old bath house certainly added lots of colour to the streamside walk. We enjoyed a very pleasant brunch at Bettys outdoor tea house for thirty minutes or so before continuing our walk along the opposite side of the stream to the ‘Geoffrey Smith memorial stone’ where we headed left, up the gentle slope to the ‘Sandstone Rock Gardens’. The flowering blossom trees which lined both sides of the path were an absolute picture, their white and pink florets looked beautiful in the April sunshine. On reaching the top of the slope we passed another giant Easter Egg before entering the ‘Alpine House’, I am not really a cacti lover but on our left as we entered the house, were some impressive Cacti. A little further along we were met with some beautiful displays of miniature daffodils, primulas and saxifrages which were looking particularly striking, along with the Primula auricula also known as Mountain Cowslip, with delicate deep purple and pink flowers around glowing egg-yolk yellow centres. We do not often visit the Alpine house but will certainly have to visit it more often. Leaving the Alpine House we headed into the Sub Tropical Garden, again another area I do not often visit, of note today were the Magnolias which were in full flower, their white and pink florets bigger than the size of my hand. Reluctantly leaving the garden we headed for the ‘Garden centre’ for a browse before the journey home.