Fletcher Moss Botanical Gardens

A perennial south manchester favourite, this is a flood plane and recreational area with two adjacent landscaped gardens (alpine and parsonage). lovely place but gets very busy and the new burger van style cafes are a step back from the proper indoor cafe, as i hate those stupid plastic cups everyone is using, it's as if reusable cups never happened, ah well. not sure why the building is no longer used, here's hoping it will reopen. this building, called the croft, incidentally used to be the residence of emily williamson, one of the founders of the rspb. make sure you visit the parsonage gardens and parsonage building itself just opposite (tucked away behind the pubs). it houses many art exhibitions and some stunning stained glass windows.

Beautiful well maintained park. parking was a bit of an issue on the site so we parked and walked. toilets available and nice cafe with ice creams and snacks.

Lovely park. the botanical garden part of it it absolutely stunning. there is a little parking area tucked away on millgate lane. despite being a bank holiday weekend i still managed to get a parking space. after wondering for a bit we went up to the little cafe area where they had a lovely selection of food and drinks. with my raspberry lemonade in hand we continued to explore the beautiful gardens.

After the reviews i was kind of disappointed because we had to travel far, it was a nice place to walk the dog for an hour but not nearly as pretty as its made out to be, the ponds are looking awful and brown. there were lots of wild flowers but none we could see that were intentionally planted except in a small garden area where dogs can't go.

I haven't been here since i was about 18yrs old and thoroughly enjoyed my visit. i'll definitely be going back with my hubby, there's so much more to it than simply the gardens.