Discover: Kent - Spring in The Garden of England

Famed for its pretty orchards, ancient woodlands, rolling fields and historic gardens, Kent’s countryside comes alive during the season of renewal, says Simon Richmond

- By Simon Richmond. Photographs by Alamy, Shutterstock, Naturalpl.com, Natural Trust Images

It is spring at Brogdale Farm, near the old market town of Faversham in northeast Kent. Amid the orchards of the National Fruit Collection, sunlight filters through fresh green leaves and the ethereal pink and white petals of cherry blossom, dappling the ground below.

Picnic blankets are spread around the trees, with groups of visitors enjoying hanami – ‘flower viewing’– the Japanese custom of appreciating the transient beauty of the blossoms. My skin tingles as the lightest of breezes transforms the orchard into a snow globe of petals. The surrounding meadows are a pointillist landscape of buttercups, daisies and white clover, buzzing with honeybees awakened from their winter slumbers in Brogdale’s hives and busily playing their crucial part in the spring revival.

Blossoming fruit trees have been a feature of the Kent landscape in spring for at least 2,000 years, ever since the Romans brought their taste for apples and pears to Britain. From February with plums, through to the end of May for apples, Brogdale’s 60 hectares are awash with fluffy clouds of blossom, predominantly white, with pink and rose from the apple and ornamental cherry trees. It’s a spectacle that, according to Pippa Palmar of Kent Wildlife Trust (KWT) and a former expert at the National Fruit Collection, is “like ballet dancers pirouetting through the grass”.

Fruit blossoms are just one element of Kent’s bounteous seasonal offering. This is a county of gorgeously diverse landscapes, studded with pretty villages and blessed with two official Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB): the Kent Downs and the High Weald. The Downs is 70% ancient woodlands, where the spring flora can include masses of wood anemone and bluebells.