If you can’t get to the gardens, many of them are open virtually through the NGS website (ngs.org.uk), to give you ideas for your own planting, colour schemes and style.

If you do want to go, you’ll need to book a pre-timed entry slot and check the NGS website and its Scottish counterpart SGS (scotlandsgardens.org) for updates on Covid-19 restrictions.

Some of the highlights include…

1 Burnton Road, Dalrymple, Ayrshire

If you’re after some exotic inspiration, this garden (main image), opening for the first time under Scotland’s Gardens Scheme, features tropical ideas in a tiny slice of jungle, nestled within a small triangular plot. Planting includes palms, bamboos and tree ferns, as well as hardy and tender bromeliads, while flower highlights are provided by lilies, cannas and gingers.

GARDENER’S COTTAGE Crombie, Dunfermline

Originally part of the Craigflower Estate, the garden was transformed by the late Scottish-German botanist Ursula McHardy to demonstrate models of natural vegetation patterns of the Southern Hemisphere.

Within the walled garden you will find an Australian eucalyptus forest and a South American forest with southern beeches and monkey-puzzles. There is also a South African area and a New Zealand section with five pools as well as traditional mixed borders.

DUNDONNELL HOUSE Little Loch Broom, Wester Ross

Camellias, magnolias and bulbs in spring, rhododendrons and laburnum walk in this ancient walled garden.

Exciting planting in new borders gives all year colour centred around one of the oldest yew trees in Scotland. It’s large at 25 acres but you can take each element as an inspiration for a smaller plot. There’s a new water sculpture, midsummer roses, and a recently restored unique Victorian glass house.

42 Falconer Road, Herts

This is such a quirky garden, replete with painted ladder, right, bird cages, mirrors and other antiquarian ephemera and objets d’art, which interior designer owner Suzette Fuller has picked up from her customers’ cast-offs over the years. Planting comprises old-fashioned favourites, including hollyhocks, foxgloves and dianthus, along with more than 25 hanging baskets, which are peppered throughout the garden.

18 Highfield Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire

It may be a small terraced garden, left, but it packs a huge punch if you love structural planting featuring agapanthus and other striking plants in pots, at the front of an impressive vista of shrubs and herbaceous plants. The owner knows her plants – she’s an RHS Certificate holder and it shows, as she combines formality with a more relaxed look, inspired by Christopher Lloyd.

19 Fir St, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

This is one of two small urban gardens, designed and owned by members of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. Anyone interested in naturalistic planting will appreciate the meadow-style design packed with plants, many of which are native to South Africa, which are usually considered too tender for a northern English city, but which will give you colour and leaf interest from February to November.