Cluny House Gardens

Bobby Masterton was a vet who bought a hillside above the Tay in 1950 and, with his wife Betty, spent the following decades turning it into one of Scotland's finest woodland gardens. The pair had a particular passion for Himalayan plants, which took to Cluny's damp, acidic conditions with enthusiasm: blue poppies, candelabra primulas, cobra lilies and giant Himalayan lilies that reach three metres are all here in numbers, regenerating freely under a canopy of rhododendrons, acers and birches. Their daughter Wendy Mattingley and her husband John have cared for the garden since 1987, cultivating it organically with no chemicals and weeding entirely by hand.

The trees predate all of them. Two giant Wellingtonias tower over the garden, one with a girth of more than 11 metres, the widest of any conifer in Britain, possibly grown from seed gathered in 1853. Then there are the red squirrels. Cluny spends hundreds of pounds a year on feed, and the residents are famously bold, often feeding by the car park in the morning. Entry works on an honesty box, £6 per adult and £1 per child, cash only, and there's a small nursery selling home-grown woodland plants.