“HOW come you never see any gardeners, yet it is all immaculate? Do they creep out after dark?”

My friend Betty marvels at the neat borders and beautifully tended flower beds on an afternoon visit to RHS Harlow Carr. “I can’t see one weed, not a single one and look at those hellebores standing so high, when mine are flopping all over the place,” she says.

A visit to the famous garden in Harrogate is a pleasure in all seasons. At this time of year the air is rich with the smell of compost, newly laid to nurture the spring blooms about to burst forth.

A carpet of different coloured heather greets you at the entrance: deep purple, lilac and white. Then it’s on to the Alpine House, filled with ideas for rockeries and pots.

Strolling around the paths, many ingeniously bordered with twisted willow, we came across so much to inspire for the gardening year ahead.

Purple iris lining one route, pale yellow hellebore another, and fiery red dogwood a third.

I love the many intriguing varieties of apples - King of the Pippins, Red Devil, Captain Kidd - labelled up beneath espaliers and cordons. They must look wonderful in season.

Covering 68 acres and at an altitude of 155m (508ft) above sea level, the garden has a unique topography and varied growing conditions that challenge its gardeners. It experiences cold, dry winter winds, frequent deep frosts and a relatively short and cool growing season. The soil is acidic in some areas. These combined conditions result in a different range of plants from other RHS gardens.

On my last visit, when crossing the stream that flows across the gardens, I noticed a smell of sulphur and a cloudiness in the water. The garden owes its existence to mineral springs in and around Harrogate, which were first discovered in 1571. In 1734, one of the springs on the Harlow Car Estate, as it was then spelled, was found to be sulphurous and considered to have health benefits.

But it was many years before the site was developed as a spa. In 1840, Henry Wright, the owner of the estate, cleaned out and protected one of the wells and, four years later, built a hotel and bath house, also laying out pleasure gardens.

In 1861, Harlow Car Springs was described as a ‘sweet, secluded spot... The grounds are neatly laid out, adorned with a selection of trees, shrubs and flowers, walks, easy seats and shady arbours.’ Just as it is today.

Much later, the site was taken over by the then Northern Horticultural Society as a northern counterpart to the RHS garden at Wisley in Surrey, where new plants could be tested for hardiness and suitability to northern climes. In 1950, Harlow Carr Botanical Gardens opened to the public.

On this occasion, the cloudiness was still present in the stream, but I could not detect an aroma.

There is much going on at Harlow Carr in spring, with activities including an Easter arts and crafts exhibition, a spring gardening and wildlife weekend, a plant fair and a rhododendron show. Activities such as story time and a Lindt gold bunny hunt will being smiles to young faces.

The Bath House is staging a series of exhibitions including textiles, paper and printmaking and art and photography from mainly Yorkshire-based artists, with many items on sale.

We walked around the small lake to the modern installation created by celebrity garden designer Diarmuid Gavin. It isn’t my cup of tea, but it’s interesting all the same.

Excited shrieks from the tree house and other children’s play equipment reminded me of times too quickly gone when my daughters ran off into the Harlow Carr woodland looking for adventure.

To round off a lovely afternoon we popped into Betty’s, overlooking the gardens, for a cup of tea.

*RHS Harlow Carr, Cragg Lane, Harrogate HG3 1QB; W: rhs.org.uk/harlowcarr; T: 0845 2658070.