Gwavas Garden is a beautiful woodland garden, based on the Cornish family home of Tregrehan, where Carlyons have lived for 500 years. It comprises nine hectares (20 acres) of mainly exotic trees and shrubs. The very first plantings were planted by Major Carlyon in the 1860’s. Gwavas Garden is listed as a "registered group of historic trees" with the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture, also as a Garden of National Significance by the NZ Garden Trust and it has been recognized by the International Dendrology Society with a “Distinguished For Merit” award.

You don't need to be a keen gardener to appeciate the beauty of Gwavas Garden; it's a visual spectacle even to the untrained eye; camellias and magnolia flower from August, rhododendrons and azaleas from September. The garden is at its best in spring, with October and November ideal months to enjoy the colours and contours of this sylvan setting; however there is always something to see or a whiff of fragrance to smell throughout the year, autumn colours, for example, can be spectacular.

The garden is a treasure trove of rare and unusal specimens: Himalayan lilies; a very large Michaelia doltsopa, planted in 1951 - one of the earliest in the country; and a Quercus suber (cork oak) planted in 1894. The aptly named raspberry plants, Semper fidelis, have faithfully continued to yield a delicious crop every year since they were planted over a hundred and twenty years ago.