FRIENDS often ask me which is my favourite public garden?

I always find this a difficult question, not because I don't have any preferences, but because I have to think hard about the criteria I am using to judge them.

I do often find smaller gardens easier to relate to, and more like my own garden in size. I think you can enjoy gardens and like them on different levels and in varied ways. There is no right or wrong way of looking at gardens.

All gardens are largely artificial. What I mean is that we put together plants that wouldn’t normally be found growing together in a way that we find pleasing. Even the most natural or wild gardens need quite a large amount of managing or tweaking to continue looking good.

Some people may not be very interested in plants but enjoy being outside in nature. They like seeing beautiful flowers and plants carefully arranged together in a pleasing way. It is reckoned that the green shades around us in many gardens can make us feel good and promote our health and wellbeing. We can often learn so much from looking, even at neighbours’ gardens, to consider what may be best suited to growing in our own garden spaces.

As someone who likes their plants, I like to see interesting plants, some of which I perhaps don’t have an opportunity to view very often. I am interested in how they grow and seeing them in varied settings and furthering my understanding of how they grow, can be very illuminating.

I enjoy gardens that look to some extent naturalistic and more informal. Round shapes of borders and paths I often find most pleasing.

I also like gardens that are put together in a way that I find pleasing and attractive. There is a lot of talk about garden design. I am not really that interested in gardens that have been created at massive expense, perhaps with huge amounts of hard landscaping and for instant effect.

I often feel that gardens benefit from a clear and identified entrance and exit as well as a defined route through them. Gardens also benefit from being in keeping with the house contained with them. For instance, I am thinking here about the colour of brickwork, whether a house is older, traditional and also its size.

At the moment, some of Cornwall’s large and famous spring gardens are looking particularly pleasing. To see a range of rhododendron, camelia, azalea and other shrub species flowering in these settings after what has felt like a long and often wet winter, I find very rewarding.

Many of these gardens have a rich history, some real maturity and some huge well-established plantings. There are specimens that were among the first to be bought to this country by earlier plant hunters. Cornwall’s unique climatic conditions help provide an environment where they flourish and look at their best.

So do get out and enjoy looking at other people’s gardens. Enjoy them in whatever way you wish.

Martin Pallett