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Going beyond the usual tourist route in our mini-coach, off the beaten track where those herded on impersonal big buses can’t go, we will introduce you to some local treasures as well as the major sites. Your multi-talented driver/guide will fill in each touring day as time will permit, with visits to some little local gems, participants in the National Gardens Scheme, gardens open for charity. We’ll see properties designed by some of the ‘Best of British,’ Gertrude Jekyll, Rosemary Verey, ‘Capability’ Brown and maybe discover the next ‘Big Thing’ at the Chelsea Flower Show.
The highlight of our gardening adventure is sure to be an annual membership in the Royal Horticultural Society. The RHS is the premiere UK gardening organization. Membership offers a host of benefits including a garden magazine full of gardening advice, discounted/complimentary entrances to dozens of gardens throughout the year and priority access to the RHS Flower Shows. Your tour package also includes a full day ticket to a member only day to the Chelsea Flower Show. This delightful tour is sure to please everyone, avid gardeners and beginners alike!
Just 14 guests on this special departure, early booking is recommended to avoid disappointment!
Why Not ‘Link It?’ We have a 4-day Holland Floriade tour which links up with this popular Chelsea Flower Show tour. The Floriade is a special cultural and gardening event that happens just once every 10 years. Enjoy a sample of Belgium and Holland’s lovely gardens including a full day or more at the Floriade!
If you prefer - we offer an 8-day Holland Floriade tour in April including Keukenhof & Holland’s famed bulb fields! There are Holland Tulip Time River Cruises and scheduled Garden Tours throughout the year too.
Chelsea Flower Show Tour Date: 16 - 24 May, 2012
Tour Cost: $2999 USD per person; $3500 USD single rate
What your tour price includes: Your accommodation for 8 nights in 3 and 4 star properties while on the tour including breakfast daily, most dinners (as listed) and an afternoon tea. Your price includes all entrance fees to gardens and attractions while with your guide, an annual RHS Membership, a full day ticket to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show on a Member's Only Day, mini-coach transportation, exclusive services of your driver/guide-companion, all taxes, tolls and tips other than those you may wish to give your guide.
Airport transfers, accommodation pre and post tour, London city tours, London transport passes and theatre tickets are not included but can be added to your package as you wish for a supplemental fee. Ask us for details.
Contact us for availability or to hold space on the tour: specialgrouptours@yahoo.com
This tour begins and ends in London.
TENTATIVE ITINERARY
Day 1, Wednesday, 16 May
Welcome to London! Today is free so you have the chance to relax, recover from your international journey and go sightseeing in the Capitol as you wish.
Perhaps you will choose to go around on the “Big Bus” the easiest way to see the main icons and get orientated in London. Hop off when you want then hop back on - a fun way to start your holiday.
SGT highly recommends a visit to St Paul’s Cathedral during your time in London. Their new included multi-media personal Ipod Touch tour guide brings hundreds of years of British history to life - literary at your fingertips! Avoid the queues/lines and pre-book your tickets via us. We can also assist you with pre-booking The Tower of London tickets too. Ask us for details.
Alternatively, London has a wide array of public parks and gardens of all shapes and sizes plus an interesting Gardening Museum. The Royal Gardens at Kew is a popular choice. This is one of the world's largest botanical gardens featuring about 121 hectacres of gardens including glasshouses, Japanese gardens, an orangery, Kew Palace, and a treetop walkway. The choice is yours!
PRIVATE TOUR OPTION: Those guests already in London might enjoy a private “Jekyll Gardens Day Trip” today, visiting The Manor House in Upton Grey, Goddards plus a cream tea at Tylney Hall. Ask us for pricing and availability details!
OVERNIGHT: London, BB (accommodation included in package) Property: Regency Hotel or Rembrandt Hotel or similar http://www.londonregency.com/index1.asp http://www.sarova.com/rembrandt/
Day 2, Thursday, 17 May
Your tour guide will meet you in the lobby of your tour hotel at approximately 09:00 this morning and we’ll begin our gardens adventure with a garden that requires no introduction – the RHS Wisley is known the world over! We will spend ample time here, exploring the rock garden, alpine garden, wild garden, formal rose courtyards and all that this wonderful place has to offer.
This afternoon, via the marvelously scenic countryside, dotted with oast houses and sometimes blooming lavender fields, we’ll have a visit to Penshurst Place. Here, just one splendor is the 11-acre formal walled garden, with records dating back to 1346. Penshurst is one of the oldest gardens in private ownership and remains much as it was when constructed by Sir Henry Sidney in the Elizabethan era.
En-route to our accommodation, if we manage to have some additional time to fill, there is just a wealth of opportunity. This region of Kent is known to be “The Garden of England” for good reason!
Overnight: Kent, dinner, bed and breakfast; Property: Chilston Park Manor, Lenham, Kent http://www.handpickedhotels.co.uk/hotels/chilston-park/
Day 3, Friday, 18 May
Today, the fabulous Sissinghurst, Vita Sackville-West and Sir Harold Nicholson's world famous garden will be our main visit. You'll have plenty of time to explore this intimate and intricate garden and to visit those parts of her home open to the public. Here, we’ll find a Tudor tower complete with Vita’s workshop, a walled herb garden, mixed border gardens, an oast house museum, a white garden and a cottage garden. Certainly something to delight all interests!
This afternoon we’ll see the gem Hole Park Gardens. Here, a 15 acre garden surrounded by open parklands, massed bluebells in season in the woodland walk, standard wisteria, orchids in flower meadow, yew hedges, large lawns and specimen trees. First opened in 1927, the gardens offer a walled garden, pools and mixed borders combined with bulbs, rhododendrons and azaleas.
Overnight: Kent as above, dinner, bed and breakfast
Day 4, Saturday, 19 May
Our morning is open for participant input in consultation with your guide - certainly spoilt for choice in Kent, the “Garden of England!” Choose a visit to a small, local cottage or farm garden from the Yellow Book Gardens for Charity Scheme; there are rose and clematis walkways, rock gardens, sculpted yew hedges and ponds with water lilies all on offer. There are also several National Trust properties along our route. Just a stone’s throw from our accommodation is Groomsbridge, an inspiration for many artists and authors over the years, ‘picturesque’ Scotney Castle and Kipling’s cottage paradise Bateman’s. We recommend Sheffield Park, a cooperative project of ‘Capability’ Brown and Arthur Soames. Whichever gardens chosen, you should experience the personal touch of meeting the locals and perhaps a bit of sharing of gardening secrets!
Later we’ll glimpse the county of Surrey, the area that famed garden designer Gertrude Jekyll called home. By special appointment, a visit to a garden called “enchanting” by the Sunday Telegraph, Vann Gardens. Here in the 5-acre wonderland, we can explore the garden ‘rooms’ that boast a variety of styles, both formal and cottage including the water garden designed and planted by Gertrude Jekyll in 1911.
Overnight: Hungerford/Marlborough area, dinner, bed and breakfast Property: The Bear Hungerford or Castle and Ball Marlborough or similar http://www.thebearhotelhungerford.co.uk/ http://www.oldenglishinns.co.uk/marlborough/
Day 5, Sunday, 20 May
A full day today! Our morning will take us to the historic town of Malmesbury and the labor of love created by ‘the naked gardeners’ Ian and Barbara Pollard, Abbey House Gardens. The 5 acre grounds of the town’s 16th Century Abbey has been transformed in recent years, a popular retreat bursting with a variety of colour – both flowers and the personalities of the designers! Famed gardener Alan Titchmarsh said about Abbey House, “The Wow factor is here in abundance!”
Barnsley House is our next port of call, by special appointment. Enjoy time in this garden paradise created by Rosemary Verey, said to be among “England’s most famous settings” featuring knot gardens, statues by Simon Verity, the Laburnum Walk, an ornamental fruit and vegetable garden, quaint terraces, formal lawns and rolling meadows.
We should have time for one more garden before settling in for the evening, seeing a place that has been called “breathtaking” by the RHS. Coughton Court offers a wide variety of sections to delight many tastes – enjoy the bog garden, formal lawns and courtyard gardens, veggie garden and orchard plus the main centerpiece, the Walled Garden.
Dinner is not included this evening for flexibility’s sake.
Overnight: Stratford-Upon-Avon, BB; Property: Swan's Nest Hotel or The Falcon or similar http://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/SwansNest/accommodation/ http://www.legacy-hotels.co.uk/legacy-thefalcon/
Day 6, Monday, 21 May
During our time in the Cotswolds, we will find time to meander through the honey-thatch cottage villages famous in this region. Each is unique and pretty in its own right and there are many opportunities for a stop in a tea or antique shop as we wish. With our small vehicle, we can get to where the larger coaches can’t and avoid the commercialized ‘honey pot’ to discover the best of the local treasures. This region offers a fine selection of local gardens, mostly small but definitely lovely and noteworthy!
A sure inclusion today is Hidecote Manor Gardens. Created by horticulturist Lawrence Johnston, this garden consists of a series of small gardens within the whole, separated by walls and hedges of different species. It's famed for rare shrubs, trees, herbaceous borders, and interesting plant species.
A contrast to the cottage style gardens is Sudeley Castle. Here are seven enchanting formal gardens, amongst them a Tudor Knot garden with water features and a delightful mosaic. Sudeley was the home of three Tudor queens, a place where scandal left its impression on the young mind of the future Queen Elizabeth I and where we can visit the grave of Katharine Parr, the final wife of Henry VIII.
Dinner is not included this evening for flexibility’s sake and the opportunity to attend the theatre at the recently refurbished RSC. The new complex offers a wonderful viewing tower and highly rated restaurant so worth a visit even if not attending a performance!
Overnight: Stratford-Upon-Avon as above, BB
Day 7, Tuesday, 22 May
Waterperry Gardens, on the edge of Oxfordshire, is a magical place where you will be surrounded by beautiful trees, shrubs and flowers, classical borders, modern plantings, secret corners and long vistas. Home to the renowned horticultural college between 1932 and 1971, the emphasis was on food production rather than spectacular ornamental gardens but that has changed in recent years. You'll now find a Formal Garden, a Waterlily Canal, a river walk and a small arboretum in the meadow area beyond the canal. Waterperry has been called “a gardener’s garden” by a previous tour guest.
Also today, we’ll spend time in the incredible treasure house and garden estate Blenheim Palace, given to Winston Churchill's ancestor John, 1st Duke of Marlborough. The superb collection here includes fine paintings, furniture, bronzes and the famous Marlborough Victories tapestries. In addition to the palace itself, with all its opulent splendor, you'll have ample time to wander the amazing gardens, designed in part by ‘Capability’ Brown. A trip to Blenheim Palace would certainly not be complete without visiting the Water Terraces, Rose Garden, Arboretum, Cascades or the Secret Garden.
As a special treat, we will enjoy our final group meal together at an Afternoon Tea in the Indian Room of Blenheim Palace. Once back in London, your evening is free for the opportunity of attending the theatre if you wish.
OVERNIGHT: London, BB (accommodation included in package) Property: Regency Hotel or Rembrandt Hotel or similar http://www.londonregency.com/index1.asp http://www.sarova.com/rembrandt/
Day 8, Wednesday, 23 May
FULL DAY, RHS MEMBERS ONLY DAY at the CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW
Today is our grand finale, a full, Members Only day at the Chelsea Flower Show! One transfer will be provided from your London hotel to the show in the morning and one transfer back in the evening. You are welcomed to come and go from the show as you please using public transport. Your Member Day Chelsea ticket is valid from 8am – 8pm.
This evening is open so you can enjoy the show until closing and/or have the option of attending the theatre.
OVERNIGHT: London, BB, as above
Day 9, Thursday, 24 May
Your package includes breakfast at your hotel this morning. After breakfast, make your way to the airport for your flight home or we are happy to assist you with extending your stay if you wish.
Optional tour add-ons are available for a supplemental fee including airport transfers, additional nights London accommodation, “Big Bus” tickets, London transport passes, London city tours or private touring extensions visiting some of the glorious London area gardens such as Kew, Syon House, Kenwood and more. Please discuss options with us!
Please Note: All attraction opening times are correct at time of printing this website. While we do our utmost to include all properties, we reserve the right to change an attraction should it become impossible to visit due to change in opening times, days.
We also offer Garden Tours throughout the year. Maybe Kent Landscapes in June or try a river cruise during Holland’s Tulip Time in April?
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