Eckford House

Explorer Tom Benmore Botanic Garden makes its entrance with giant redwoods, which is frankly showing off before you have even found a path. Their avenue leads into a mountainside garden on the Cowal Peninsula, where plants from the Himalayas, Japan and the Americas grow under Scottish skies. I would call the trees guards, but they have been standing there too long to take orders from me. The garden covers about 120 acres and is especially known for tall conifers and rhododendrons. Follow the marked walks past a pond and a Victorian fernery, then climb for viewpoints over the surrounding hills. The redwoods were planted more than a century and a half ago, so even the entrance has a history. Collections from distant regions sit alongside the local setting; it is a journey around the world accomplished mostly at walking pace and with fewer lost suitcases. Give yourself time to choose a route. Lower paths offer the easiest circuit and still include the pond and many fine plantings. The upper garden is genuinely steep, with loose sections and gradients that can be hard work. The Royal Botanic Garden's access map marks a lower route, and benches offer pauses. This place is lovely in rain as well as sun, but the hill does not become flat just because you ask politely. Benmore is open daily from 1 March to 31 October, normally ten until five, with paid admission for adults and free entry for children under sixteen. It closes for winter after October. Check the day's opening and weather before travelling through Cowal, and choose shoes for a hillside rather than a polished greenhouse floor. The redwoods will greet you; how far upward you go is entirely your own adventure.