Kaleidoscope of Colours as Famous Punch Bowl peaks early in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park

30th April 2012

Spring provides internationally famous displays in the gardens of Windsor Great Park, and this year, owing to the unusually warm weather conditions in March, the Punch Bowl in the Valley Gardens is peaking somewhat earlier than expected.

Mark Flanagan, Keeper of the Gardens, comments:

“We generally expect the Punch Bowl to peak in the middle of May but it is a couple of weeks early this year owing to the warm spell in March. The weather that we enjoyed then has brought forward the spring flowering season and visitors can enjoy spectacular displays of plants across The Royal Landscape.”

During the spring months, the Valley Gardens are at their most magnificent when the Japanese Kurume Azaleas, first collected by the English plant hunter Ernest Henry Wilson in 1918, are in full blaze in the famous Punch Bowl.  The spectacle is incredible with the many tens of thousands of plants in flower together, ranging from white, to the softest pink, to rose pink and ruby.  The dramatic wooded landscape offers fresh spectacles at every turn. In addition, the adjoining Azalea Valley is home to huge numbers of deciduous azaleas which in late May and June provide a kaleidoscope of colour, with reds, oranges, yellows and purples.

Visitors to the Valley Gardens will also be able to enjoy the wide range of other spring flowers including magnolias, Japanese cherries and spring heathers in the Heather Garden. The whole area has a verdant appearance with the new leaves on the outstanding range of trees and shrubs.

Highlights in The Savill Garden include Spring Wood, where the mature trees spread their leaves over a stunning spectacle of rhododendrons, azaleas, the later magnolias and other flowering woodland plants. In the Bog Garden the first of the candelabra primulas will come into flower closely followed by Siberian irises and other moisture–loving plants.