Hampshire National Trust gardens for favourite summer blooms

From rose festivals to dramatic dahlia displays, National Trust gardens in and around Hampshire are some of the best places to enjoy favourite summer blooms.

Whether you’re after inspiration for your own garden or a beautiful backdrop to meet family and friends, these horticultural gems tick every box.

Alongside beautiful flower borders, each garden listed has a particular floral highlight, giving you something new to enjoy every month from June to early autumn.

And this year, you can also experience some of these beautiful gardens ‘after hours’, with live theatre, music, and cinema.

Visitors at Mottisfont (Image: James Dobson)

The two nearest Winchester and Romsey are:

Best for roses

Mottisfont, near Romsey (June to early July)

The walled garden at Mottisfont is filled with fragrance and colour from thousands of roses in June. It’s home to the National Collection of pre-1900 old-fashioned roses. These roses flower just once a year, and their June season is an extraordinary sight.

Also look out for….

In July purple hedges of lavender line the garden paths, releasing a heady scent as you brush past. In the kitchen garden newly-planted sweet peas entwine around the pergolas, displaying fragrant pink, purple and white blooms from June to September. This is a great place to sit and relax, taking in beautiful beds of leafy salads and veg, herbs and flowers.

Summer Lates: Rose garden evenings, 1 to 1 July

Mottisfont is opening the gardens until 8pm (last entry 7pm) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday between 1 and 1 July, so you can enjoy these spectacular flowers after hours when the scent is at its best. On Thursday evenings there’s live jazz too, from the FB Pocket Orchestra, and on Saturday you can treat yourself to a chilled glass or bottle of ‘Wild Rose’ rosé, courtesy of award-winning Hampshire winery Black Chalk.

Hinton Ampner, near Alresford (June & July)

This horticultural delight is heaving with flowers in summer, and one of its stars is the collection of repeat flowering roses, renowned for their intense scent. You’ll find them throughout the gardens – climbing the walls of the kitchen garden (and the house), lining the path to the ornamental pond, and en-masse in huge rose borders just beyond the terrace. Here you’ll find apricot Ghislaine de Feligonde, and the arching branches of soft pink, richly fragrant Great Maiden’s Blush.

Also look out for….

Attractive displays of leafy summer produce and pretty companion planting in the walled kitchen garden. Behind this lies the cut flower border, brimming with assorted blooms, from delphiniums, astrantia and peonies, to roses, sweet peas and alliums.

Rose Celebration, 20 May to 10 July

A new rose guide will take you to Hinton’s rose hot spots this summer. Pick up a copy to enjoy a rose-themed trail, keeping an eye out for the garden’s wooden rose markers.

Festival of Flowers, 10 June to 2 July

This summer there are beautiful blooms to enjoy inside the house too, created in partnership with local florists Bud and Flower and talented volunteers. Floral arrangements were much loved by former owner Ralph Dutton, whose cut flower border provided plenty of inspiration – a tradition continued by the garden team to this today.

Note: the house is closed from 5 to 9 June

Summer Lates: Outdoor theatre

‘The Wind in the Willows’ with Quantum Theatre. Join Mole, Ratty and Badger on their mad-cap adventures in this hilarious production of a much-loved children’s classic. 5 & 21 July, 6.30pm, adult £16, child (3-17 yrs) £11, family £46. Book at nationaltrust.org.uk/hinton-ampner.

Find out more about things to do at National Trust places in and around Hampshire, at: www.nationaltrust.org.uk/hampshire.