SPRING. The busiest time of the year for gardeners in normal times, a nightmare after a freak winter which had shrubs in flower and birds mating in January and the soil virtually unworkable after, it seemed, months of non-stop rain.

If you are a gardener worried that the autumn digging never got started, or that your daffs bloomed before the snowdrops, spare a thought for a couple of guys at the end of a windy lane in one of Upper Wharfedale's hidden corners.

For Philip Nelson and Nick Smith have 16 acres of garden to tend and, as if that were not enough, they are busily adding eight acres more. To make it worse, their "plot" climbs more than 200 feet. And come summer, thousands of people will be turning up to take a highly critical look at their work.

Philip and Nick have one great advantage in taking on this mammoth task - they are full time professional gardeners and do have some part-time help - but that does not ease the burden of tending Parcevall Hall Gardens at Skyreholme.

These are gardens which look as though they have been there for centuries, nestling around a hall that dates back to the 1500s, but that is just an illusion. In fact, this patch of land looking up to the famous Simon's Seat landmark across the valley, was a treeless, wind-swept hillside less than 80 years ago.

Then along came one of the most remarkable men in the history of Yorkshire horticulture, Sir William Milner, a rich baronet, architect and devoted Christian, who made a living building churches and back in the 1920s was searching for a country retreat where he could get some peace and quiet.

His eyes finally settled on a traditional Dales "long-house" - a farmhouse that first appeared in historic records in a will made in 1589 - and the redoubtable Sir William set about converting it in a luxurious 20th century "gentleman's residence" that retained its 16th century character. Not our average barn conversion, that's for sure.

But the surrounding land was just about as bleak as could be, open moor without a tree in sight, criss-crossed by a beck that became an impassable torrent in winter. Let's have some really outstanding gardens, ordered the baronet, and a long, hard labour of love was launched.

Hundreds of trees and shrubs were planted, which now shelter thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - of daffodils, so numerous that no-one has ever tried to count them. A bog garden was laid out near the beck and, 200-feet above, a rock garden was blasted out of the limestone to become home to hundreds of species of rare Alpine plants.

And around the centuries old face of the hall, elaborate terraces were laid out taking in the stunning views across the valley to the south - a sweep of lawns, huge stone retaining walls, and hundreds of roses and flowering shrubs, a virtual Garden of Eden halfway up a windswept Dales hillside.

Such was the importance of this place that many of its plants formed the basis for the nationally famous collection at Harlow Carr, Harrogate. But, like many good things, it nearly came to an end after Sir William died in 1960. He willed the estate to a Church of England charity and the hall was turned in a retreat and conference centre.

The gardens, however, fell into neglect and were on the verge of becoming an overgrown wilderness. Help arrived just in time when a well-known Yorkshire horticulturist, Josephine Makin, was asked to start putting them back to their former grandeur. That is the work being carried on now by head gardener Philip Nelson, who took the job 17 years ago, and his assistant Nick Smith.

The gardens opened to the public on April 1 to receive some of the 6,000-plus visitors who arrive every summer, despite the fact that Parcevall is one of the most remote public gardens in the North - literally, the end of the tracks as the road runs out when it reaches the hall.

"The fact that they make this rather difficult trip illustrates how keen they are on gardeners and gardening," says Philip. "But that also means that they are very knowledgable and can be harsh critics, which means we have to work to meet those expectations. After a winter like this, we are going to have to work very hard indeed"

The changing climate has made things difficult. Acres of lawn needed mowing through the winter as the grass was still growing in the mild temperatures. In the quarry-like rock garden, hundred of alpines - which prefer to spend the winter under a blanket of snow - needed to be stripped of dead leaves by hand; and April has been incredibly dry. We shall be keeping our fingers even more tightly crossed for the keepers of one of Craven's hidden jewels.