Exbury Gardens consist of 200 hectares of landscaped gardens and are world-famous for the Rothschild Collection of rhododendrons, azaleas, camellia and rare trees and shrubs.

As such they are essentially a spring garden, but the scale and extent of these parklands, scattered with an excellent selection of mature trees and shrubs, make visits all year round a rewarding experience.

Exbury isn't just good in spring, it is a lovely park style garden any time of the year.

In summer it is a lush and peaceful retreat to enjoy long and short walks.

And in autumn it offers a magnificent show as the leaves change to oranges, russets and gold.

This is a garden/parkland that could only be gifted to the nation by the richest of rich and the Rothschild family seem to always had plenty to spare, especially lavishing fortunes on creating great gardens.

Unlike Waddesdon which was built by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild around a spectacular French Chateau styled house, Exbury was purchased by Lionel de Rothschild in 1919 specifically to create a garden paying homage to his favourite plant - the Rhododendron. 

As such the house is not particularly spectacular but the grounds are scaled to allow these wonderful plants to reach their full scale as well as have plenty of taller trees around to provide contrast and the shade they need to thrive.

Before planting, the 150 strong garden team dug in huge quantities of spent hops from the local brewery to provide organic matter and moisture retention required by these spectacular Himalayan plants. 

Boreholes were also sunk and 22 miles of water piping installed for irrigation.

After WW2 the gardens had fallen into disrepair and son Edmund de Rothschild set about restoring them to their glory days of the 1920's.

Today it is open to the public via the private family trust and has been well planned and executed with distinct areas connected by easy walk paths, either paved, gravel or woodland walks.

For those who would rather not or cannot walk longer distances, there are train rides and buggies tours. The miniature steam railway being world famous and an attraction in its own right.