The Cotswold Tour 2012

Thursday 10th to Tuesday 15th May 2012 based at Stow-on-the-Wold

The Cotswold Hills, lying between Birmingham to the North and Oxford to the South, are renowned for their picturesque honey coloured sand-stone villages. Here are some world-class gardens commemorated in the names of famous flower and fruit cultivars such as Blenheim Palace, Hidcote Manor and Kiftsgate Court. There are also the homes of famous gardeners Beatrix Havergal’s Waterperry, one of the first horticultural colleges for women and Highgrove, Prince Charle's garden. There are many lesser known but lovely gardens such as Sudeley Castle, Sezincote, Charlecote Park, Buscot Park and Greys Court. A selection of these are visited together with some memorable small gardens like Stone House, Temple Guiting Manor and Bourton House

Chelsea Flower Show is 22nd to 26th May

Somerset, Devon and Cornwall Tour

We shall visit spectacular large gardens like Hestercombe Rosemoor [RHS], The Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project as well as charming gardens at The Garden House, Cotehele, Lanhydrock, Tintinhull House, Killerton, Knightshayes, Trebah and Trelissick. The tour begins and ends at Bristol (near Somerset) or Exeter in Devon where many of the gardens are on the acidic old red sandstone underlying Dartmoor. We visit the Cornish gardens, where the web page Green Giant surfaced in surprise to find himself in the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

Our base is by the harbour in the quaint little fishing village of Mevagissey. We also stay in a very comfortable seventeenth century farmhouse close to Glastonbury, a town rich in Arthurian legend. This is in Somerset where there is the limestone scenery of the Mendip Hills and the wilderness of Lorna Doone's Exmoor.