Brogdale – home to the country’s most beautiful orchards
As home to 400 cherries plus thousands of other flowering fruit trees, Brogdale Collections is one of the best places in the UK to enjoy blossom displays. Our fruit trees include apples, pears, plums, crab apples, quinces, greengages, medlars and cherries – including some beautiful ornamental varieties. Due to the number and wide range of different fruit trees, nowhere else beats Brogdale for its amazing diversity of blossom.
Set in 150 acres of farmland in Kent, Brogdale Collections is home to the National Fruit Collections – the largest collection of temperate fruits in the world.
Imagine the beauty of thousands of blooming fruit trees with a wonderful range of sizes in shades of pink, white and cream, cascading into beautiful shapes and patterns. As trees flower at different times, this beauty unfolds over several weeks and it is a stunning time of year at Brogdale.
Which trees blossom when?
It’s hard to predict when the blooms will appear each year as they are affected by frosts, warm weather and strong winds.
Brogdale Collections regularly monitors the number of blossoming trees in its orchards and updates a Blossom Forecast on its website every week during blossom season. This helps visitors decide the best time to visit, although you’ll always find some beautiful blossom at Brogdale from March to May. Visit our Blossom Forecast page here.
This year, some ornamental cherries kicked off the blossom season, the early plums weren’t far behind and pleasingly just as the early plum flowers ended the late plums started to bloom. Lovely! From mid-April about half of the ornamental cherry trees were in blossom with a few fruiting cherries also making an appearance. Towards the end of April there should be a stunning display of cherry blossom which most years provides the backdrop for our Hanami Festival celebrating all things Japanese. We hope to have this up and running again in 2022, but in 2021 visitors with an orchard pass can book a picnic spot under the blossoms which is still a great way of enjoying our beautiful blooms.
The pears are putting on a great display mid-April and our thousands of apple trees should blossom at the same time towards the end of April. The swansong of our gorgeous blossom orchards will be the crab apples and quince, which step in last minute for a final gorgeous display.
Why fruit trees produce blossom
To successfully produce fruit, flowers need pollinating. This means that the pollen must travel from one flower to another before fertilisation can occur. This is usually done by insects such as honeybees, bumblebees, flies, beetles and wasps.
So blossom time is a great opportunity to enjoy watching the orchards’ wildlife. There are thousands of buzzy bees so full of personality and the other pollinators, along with birds that are attracted by the insects and the nectar, busy collecting as much food as they can to feed their young.
Visit and enjoy our blossom
As Covid restrictions ease and the blossom is starting to appear, visitors can now book a slot to bring a picnic to Brogdale’s orchards. They can also enjoy a self-guided walk or guided tour of the beautiful trees. To book a picnic slot, all visitors must have a Brogdale Orchard Pass and need to pre-book both their visit as well as a picnic slot in advance.
Latest government regulations relating to social gatherings apply.
