Exbury Gardens is a 200-acre informal woodland garden in the village of Exbury in the New Forest. It sits across the river from Bucklers Hard. It has a large collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, and is often considered the finest garden of its type in the United Kingdom. Spring is a great time to visit as the rhododendrons and azaleas are in full bloom. We weren’t the only folks to think that as the Car parks were very busy. However, due to the scale of the gardens, it never felt particularly crowded.

Exbury House (in the picture below) is privately owned and not open for visitors.

From Wikipedia:

Features include the Hydrangea Walk, the Rock Garden, Iris Garden, the Sundial Garden, Centenary Garden and Camellia Walk (which takes visitors to a path alongside Beaulieu river and back via the pond).The infrastructure included a water tower, three large concrete lined ponds, and 22 miles (35 km) of underground piping. Exbury Gardens is now open to the public for most of the year, with high seasons in the spring for the flowering shrubs and the autumn for the autumn colour.

Nobody knows why the side shoots of this Oriental Plane (there are three of them) have taken on these strange contorted shapes. The Mother tree – standing in the middle – is almost hollow, yet perfectly healthy with a root system that not only supports itself but also its wiggly offspring.

There are a series of cascading pools and a viewpoint across the river.

More pictures are in the gallery below. Click on an image if you wish to see the full detail.

The next day we were back on the bikes for a visit to the Trusted Servant Inn for lunch.

We will probably head out on the bikes again tomorrow and then its time to pack everything away and head back to the delights of East Devon.