gardens in England
 

We are planing on visiting the gardens for 12 days in June. We will have a rental car and are looking to stay in B and B,s. We are looking for suggestions on the gardens to see and places to stay. Thanks for your help. Dodi

England is a large place and there are hundreds of gardens (thousands actually) open to the public. You need to narrow things down a bit before we can give you useful suggestions.

Which region(s) are you planning to visit?

In London area the Physic garden at Chelsea and Kew (Royal Botanical gardens ) are worth visiting.

I second northie's suggestion of the Physic garden in Chelsea, very enjoyable and their cafe is nice for a light lunch.

Yes, the Physic garden is really interesting (as are many others in/near London) . . . but we don't know if the OP even plans on staying in London. Since they mention a car and B&Bs it doesn't really seem so.

Before we list a hundred great gardens -- maybe a hint which parts of England they plan to visit??

OR -- we could start a (long) list:

Physic Garden
Queen Mary's rose garden
Kew
RHS Wisley
Sissinghurst
Scotney Castle
Hidcote Manor
Westonbirt
Stowe
Stourhead
Alnwick
Fountains Abbey/Studley Royal
Forde Abbey
Heligan
The Eden Project
Trelissick
Tresco
Hever
Penshurst Place
Igtham Mote
Leeds Castle
Bateman's
Sezincote
Levens Hall
Cragside
Lyme Park
Hatfield House
Oxfod Botanic Gardens
Cambridge Botanic Gardens

These are just <i>some</i> of the gardens I've visited -- the list could go on for pages.

So - which part(s) of England are you visiting?

Oops -- that should be Oxfo<B>r</B>d Botanic Gardens

Add to janisj list - Hever Castle in Kent- lovely redesigned gardens and as so many have a lovely cafe. Also Hampton Court - some as original gardens.
Perhaps look at how you could group some of the suggestions together. Also have a look at RHS site - May point you to some .

http://www.ngs.org.uk/?gclid=CjwKEAi...-0hBoC5k7w_wcB
http://www.gardensillustrated.com/ar...-gardens-visit
http://www.greatbritishgardens.co.uk/
and on and on

The National Trust website also provides great ideas by region. If you are American, a membership to the Royal Oak Foundation is tax-deductible and will allow free entry to many of the National Trust properties in England.

http://www.royal-oak.org
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk

northie: >>Add to janisj list - Hever Castle in Kent-<<

It is there in my list ;)

We especially liked Hidcote Manor Garden and Sissinghurst, if that's any help. For park-like gardens, head to Virginia Water and Savill Garden; both are a delight.

also in the south east, Chartwell, Scotney, Knole, Petworth, and Montisfont, and don't get me started on Cornwall.

As for places to stay, you could do a lot worse than somewhere in darkest Kent - loads more than you could do in a month. You can even stay at Sissinghurst - someone here did just that and loved it, though personally, I like to be able to walk to the pub at night and not to have to drive home afterwards.

hope all this helps.

The Royal Oak Society worked well for us. We made good use of that pass and the English Heritage pass too.

We loved Hever Castle gardens and RHS Wisley and loved all of Chartwell. Sissinghurst gets great reviews but when we went last summer it was not peak season and it was not in peak form. Even the gardeners had a sign posted on the blackboard apologizing for the condition of the garden that summer. Will have to go back there again in the spring sometime.

Just an fyi - as PBS just had a very interesting hour long program (essentially a synopis of a year's activity) - about the Queen's Garden at Buckingham Palace. see: http://www.pbs.org/program/queens-garden/

oops janisj -didn't read your list carefully

For some of the smaller gardens off the usual tourist beat, have a look for ideas here:
http://wasleys.org.uk/eleanor/garden...and/index.html

or the National Garden Scheme aka the Yellow Book:

http://www.ngs.org.uk

They list gardens by area and date - many private gardens open for charity on a few days of the year. They all have to be inspected before they can be entered in the guide so you are unlikely to be faced with someone's patch of weeds!

I was just going to suggest the Yellow Book. It's the bible of garden visits for the year and as gardens are at the top of my list, along with walking in the UK, when I have a car I get the book.

The only difficulty is narrowing down the possibilities. June is a great time to be doing it and there will be lots of private places, as annhig says, open for charity on weekends. Don't limit yourself to the "stately homes" as some of the most magnificent gardens are found at more modest homes, so deep is the talent for gardening across the spectrum. There are often tea & cakes at the private places too and it's like a garden party. Or I've occasionally gone to a place with few or no other visitors and gotten a private tour with the owner/gardener.

Choose a likely part of the country and map your visits using the listings in the book. It's a glorious way to see the countryside. I wouldn't plan a garden-visiting holiday without the book as without it you'll miss some of the most wonderful & idiosyncratic expressions of the art.