Hidden Valley Gardens in Treesmill, Cornwall has been voted overall winner of the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Partner Garden of the Year Competition 2023.

Owners Tricia and Peter Howard have spent 24 years transforming the three-acre land from an overgrown ‘pick your own’ into an idyllic garden, featuring a number of colourful beds, a Mediterranean area, shady ferneries, and a pond and bog area, all encapsulating the ‘Feel Good’ theme of the competition.

Visitors describe it as “a warm and welcoming garden” and as having “an imaginative design, incorporating flowers and vegetables, with insect and bird life taken into consideration.”

Hidden Valley Gardens was chosen from six regional finalists after visitors chose their favourite gardens in each region.

The regional winners were:

Scotland: Attadale Gardens
North of England and Northern Ireland: Holehird Gardens
Midlands and East Anglia: Wyken Hall
South East and Channel Islands: Denmans Garden
South West and Wales: Hidden Valley Gardens*
Overseas: Brahman Hills Garden

Helen Feary, RHS Partner Gardens manager, says: “In this third year of the RHS Partner Garden of the Year competition, visitors have once again touched us by voting in their thousands for their favourite gardens.

“Their heartfelt comments, describing gardens as ‘magical’ or even ‘balm to the soul’ show just how much good a visit to a garden can do for us.”

At present there are 221 gardens in the RHS Partner Gardens scheme, which allows RHS members to visit non-RHS gardens for free at selected times of the year.

Details of the 2024 RHS Partner Garden of the Year competition, and how to vote will be announced next spring.