When in Great Britain, stop and smell the flowers

LONDON -- It might not be strictly true that all British people are born with a green thumb; it just seems that way.

Truly, the Brits are, in the wryly affectionate words of the Economist, "potty about planting." Rarely has any nation been so dedicated to digging up and beautifying even the smallest front yard plot, while Britain's public gardens provide glorious outbursts of color in deepest countryside and central city.

Britain proclaimed 2004 "The Year of Gardening," to honor the 200th anniversary of the Royal Horticultural Society, an esteemed nonprofit organization that dispenses gardening advice, runs magnificent gardens of its own and organizes the annual Chelsea Flower Show (Britain's Woodstock for plant lovers).

Among many other things, travelers can visit a working lavender farm on the isle of Jersey and watch as five varieties of aromatic lavender are steamed and distilled into essential oils; inspect a garden in Cumbria inspired by Beatrix Potter, author of the "Peter Rabbit" tales; drop in at Perthshire, Scotland, to see the country's largest collection of heather (900 varieties).

The choices of public gardens are almost too many to count. Here are seven personal favorites, concentrated in London and the southeast of England.

Kew Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, better known as Kew Gardens, was recently designated as a World Heritage Site, and you can see why. At 300 acres and hosting a record 30,000 plant species, it's the mother of all British gardens.

"Eclectic" doesn't begin to describe its bounty, including a 10- story high Chinese pagoda, a bamboo garden and a Japanese garden, just to show its keepers are aware of the great gardeners of the East, as well as their own Western tradition. Two wonderful view- corridors slice through the spacious grounds, with grassy lanes shaded by tall, full, ancient trees. The waterside promenade through gnarly English oaks along the River Thames is a delight.

The elegant white glasshouse called the Palm House, which inspired San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers, is a must-see. A splendid example of Victorian grandeur, it holds all manner of tropical plants hauled back by Her Majesty's imperial emissaries

in the 19th and early 20th centuries; they flourish in a steamy hothouse atmosphere cooled by delicate sprays of water. You'll probably share the building with giggling gaggles of English schoolchildren in their shirts and ties and pleated skirts.

Kew also boasts a huge glasshouse for temperate plants, a blooming rose garden at its height in the summer months and no fewer than four restaurants. If you want to take a load off, the Kew Explorer, a small-wheeled tram, circles the grounds in 40 minutes (for an additional $6 adults and $3 for children 5-16). Oh, there's a redwood grove, too, for homesick Californians. Crikey.

Sissinghurst Castle

Well-known for its literary associations, this estate with its magnificent gardens and grounds was the mid-20th century home of the author Vita Sackville-West and her writer/diplomat husband, Harold Nicolson. Vita's sometimes-lover, Virginia Woolf, was a frequent visitor. Now maintained by the nonprofit National Trust, the gardens were designed by Nicolson and Sackville-West in the 1930s and actually number 10 gardens, each reaching its peak at a different time of year.

The site features the British penchant for garden "rooms": distinctly different spaces demarcated by hedges that re-create the feeling of rooms in a great-house. The most famous and most impressive garden "room" is the white garden, planted, at Sackville- West's suggestion, so she and Nicolson could find their way around the grounds in the moonlight reflected from white and gray blossoms of clematis, roses and other plants.

Also notable are the herb garden, the orchard and the lime walk, a formal corridor of pruned lime trees.

Wisley

Diversity is the byword at RHS Garden Wisley, one of four gardens operated by the estimable Royal Horticultural Society. The alpine display house holds flowering alpine plants and mosses in a small glasshouse, a big, working vegetable garden demonstrates organic methods of cultivation and the orchid house allows up-close-and- personal looks at this most extraterrestrial-looking of flowering plants. A rock garden and an herb garden are also on ample display.

When we visited in late May (last year), daisies cheerily sprinkled a hillside meadow and water lilies floated elegantly on the surface of a foreshortened canal, while wisteria climbed the loggia at the canal's end. Wisley is known for its brilliant rhododendrons in springtime. A large nursery captures attention on the way out. We bought half a dozen large seed packets of beets and parsnips and other winter vegetables for our small home garden, as living mementos.

Museum of Garden History

Installed in a desanctified church bordered by a churchyard cemetery and greenery, this Thames-side institution is one of London's quirky curiosities.

Antiquated garden implements abound in glass display cases indoors, and vintage advertisements tout bygone garden tools such as a lightweight "ladies' lawn mower." A simple cafe sells organic nibbles and teas. In back of the old church, the small walled green space exhibits plants introduced to Britain in the 17th century and features a knot garden: a tight, symmetrical pattern of hedges interspersed with roses, herbaceous perennials and other plants that provide color and fragrance in summer.

In the graveyard, you can see the final resting place of Arthur Sullivan of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, and Capt. Bligh of Bounty infamy. In one of the fine turns of history, he is identified on his memorial as Admiral Bligh; the old salt prospered after returning to England and was buried here, rich with honors.

Buckingham Gate

This is one of London's secret gardens, tucked away in a courtyard bordered by three central-city hotels just off Buckingham Gate, a secondary street near the Palace.

Far from the madding crowds and far from the scale of Britain's famous gardens, this is a delightfully informal oasis, installed in overflowing planters, in what was until recently a parking lot. Alex Jones, the young Aussie gardener at 51 Buckingham Gate Hotel, has done marvels with this space, which gets only an hour of direct sunlight per day but has a warmish microclimate that draws birds and friendly insects in the mornings.

Visitors can take light meals and sip wine at the neighboring restaurant and gaze up at the frieze that runs along the exterior hotel walls. Newly cleaned, it pictures outdoor scenes from Shakespeare's sylvan plays, such as "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

Chelsea Physic Garden

My favorite London garden is not chiefly a flowery redoubt, but a botanical garden created to nurture medicinal plants. ("Physic," related to "physician," is an old term for medicine.)

Dating to 1673, when it was planted on the banks of the Thames by the Society of Apothecaries, this densely packed, walled, 4-acre site fills every square foot with something interesting: Shrubs and rare peonies along the riverside wall, a historical walk along the eastern wall, greenhouses where research is done toward the northern end.

A statue of Sir Hans Sloane, an early benefactor of the garden, reminds visitors of the man who helped introduce chocolate to England, championed cinchona bark to combat malaria and imported cotton plants to London. One of the original backers of the colonization of Georgia, Sloane sent the first cotton seeds to the American South from this fertile London garden, changing the course of history.

Today's Chelsea Physic Garden is still dedicated to education and research, and includes a medicinal garden explaining the healthful properties of selected plants. Relaxing teas and light lunches are served from a stone building on the property.

Kensington Roof Garden

A latter-day British peer, Sir Richard Branson, of Virgin Group airline and entertainment fame, owns this 1 1/2-acre, open-air garden, so it is often closed for swank soirees such as photo shoots and record launch parties. It was closed the day we visited, but the stylish restaurant Babylon, one floor up from the garden, kindly allowed us to walk around its terrace and view the garden from above.

Laid out in 1938 on the roof of the former Derry and Tom's department store, the six-story-high garden has good views of London, is festooned with large trees, ponds, herbaceous borders and lovely flowering plants and includes an English woodland garden with a stream and ducks.

If you see thin, pink apparitions moving about, it's not just the cocktails kicking in; they're the garden's live flamingos.

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