London - Chelsea Flower Show 2011
May 22 -31, 2011

Every gardener should see Chelsea at least once! This is a very relaxed tour with plenty of time to enjoy each and every new experience.

Unpack that bag, because you are in just one hotel for the entire tour .. in London, where you will find some of the best attractions in the world, some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and some of the most incredible gardens in the world…and on this tour, we have chosen the best for you. The highlight will probably be the incomparable Chelsea Flower Show. You will have the opportunity to a variety of a number of the best of English gardens. We have included private gardens as well as the ‘must see’ gardens like Wisley, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, and you will come home with so many wonderful memories. We are limited to the number of guests on this holiday so if this tour interests you, please let us know so you can be one of the first to receive a confirmed booking!

HOLIDAY ITINERARY

Sunday 22 May - South Africa to London

Depart this evening on South African Airways for your overnight flight to London Heathrow.

Monday 23 May - Arrive in London

Arrive in London this morning and transfer to your hotel. The remainder of the day is at leisure to explore this amazing city. 

One of the newest hotels in London, is the 4 star Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel & Spa. The hotel sits just off Chelsea Bridge along the River Thames with stunning views over Battersea Park so you really can escape the hustle and bustle of the city and relax in your comfortable room.

The modern and well appointed rooms all have individually controlled air conditioning, flat screen TV, Wi-Fi, Safe, iPod docking station and much more. The Hotel also features a Portuguese restaurant. 

This evening attend a Welcome Dinner at The Orange Restaurant on Pimlico Road, and get to know your travelling companions.

The building has been lovingly restored to its former glory by the team behind The Thomas Cubitt and The Pantechnicon. The food reflects a passion to be uncomplicated along with sourcing produce from sustainable sources and forging links with the local farmers market. At the heart of the modern European food offering are glorious wood fired pizzas and oven roasts complimented by an impressive selection of guest ales, fine wines and seasonal cocktails. (D)

Tuesday 24 May - Sissinghurst Gardens & Great Dixter 

Driving south from London into the county of Kent our first visit is Sissinghurst. At Sissinghurst you see the most beautiful garden in England, created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicholson. Next is the aromatic garden around a slender brick-built castle tower - Sissinghurst is surely the best known and most copied garden in the world.

The Manor of Dixter is first noted in 1220 and structural additions were made again in 1464. In 1910 the English architect Edwin Lutyens restored the house and designed the gardens. Completing the whole picture was an important aspect of Lutyens’ designs, and once the residential part of the scheme had taken shape he concentrated on the layout of the gardens, cleverly incorporating the original outbuildings to knit all the elements together. 

This is a cottage garden on a large scale. An internal tour of Great Dixter takes in the impressive 15th century great hall, one of the largest surviving timber-framed halls in the country, the cosy low-ceilinged parlour, and the spacious first floor solar. There is a surprising and refreshing mix of decorative styles, illustrating that both old and modern can live comfortably together without creating a gaudy mish mash. (B)

Wednesday 25 May - Attend Chelsea Flower Show Members Day 

It is a short 12 minute walk from your hotel to the Chelsea Flower Show. The Chelsea Flower Show opens at 8:00 a.m. and we’ll be there when the gates open for Member's Only Day. We’ll have the entire day to enjoy the internationally famed RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the most famous garden show in the world that celebrates the beginning of the summer garden season in England.

In offering a flexible programme, guests will spend as much time as they’d like at the gardens. They will be able to return to the hotel at their leisure using their London Travel Pass. For 140 years this horticultural flower show has attracted visitors from around the world, and today it’s your turn to visit. See more than 600 exhibits, amazing garden designs, floral displays and new plants. (B)

Thursday 26 May - Half Day London Tour + Museum of Garden History

Travelling through London highlights will include: Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey & the Houses of Parliament, Fleet Street, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London Bridge, Buckingham Palace & Hyde Park to name but a few of the sights you will see.

Museum of Garden History 
Situated in the restored church of St. Mary-at-Lambeth, adjacent to Lambeth Palace on the banks of the River Thames, the Museum of Garden History provides an insight into the history and development of gardens and gardening in the UK, an important facet in our social history. The Museum houses one of the finest public displays of garden tools and garden related artifacts and curiosities in the country, as well as an intriguing collection of garden related ephemera.

In addition, a beautiful reproduction 17th century knot garden filled with flowers and shrubs of the period has been created in the graveyard around the tombs of the famous 17th century plant hunters, the John Tradescants, father and son, and Captain William Bligh of the 'Bounty'.

The remainder of the day is at leisure. (B)

Friday 27 May - Denmans Gardens & Borde Hill Gardens

Leave London this morning travelling to West Sussex to visit two delightful private gardens. 

Denmans is a lovely 3.5 acre garden shows the influence of John Brookes, practicing landscape designer, previously a lecturer at The Kew School of Garden Design at the Royal Botanic Gardens and well known for the extension of the house into the garden.

The garden includes a number of features including the Walled Garden, The Dry Stream Bed, The South Garden and the Top Lawn. There are many interesting plants including 2 Judas trees and a green Mimosa tree. The garden is evolving and there are some lovely colour combinations. Interesting sculptures and a large pool give the garden a really peaceful feel. 

Borde Hill Garden, originally planted in 1893 is an award winning garden. It is set in 200 acres of spectacular Sussex parkland in West Sussex. This romantic garden, with trees and shrubs from China, Asia, Tasmania and the Andes, was created in the 1890's by Colonel Stephenson Clarke, with botanical interest and garden design playing equally important roles.

Intimate garden 'rooms' offer a rich variety of seasonal colour from rhododendron and azaleas to roses and herbaceous plants. Garden highlights; Jay Robin's Rose Garden, designed by RHS Gold Medalist, Robin Williams, in 1996; Mediterranean and Italian Gardens, Azalea Ring, and sub-tropical Dells, Garden of Allah and over 70 'champion' trees. Extensive woodland and lakeside walks.

Return to London and your hotel. (B)

Saturday 28 May - Wisley Gardens & West Green Gardens

Our first stop this morning is the garden of the Royal Horticultural Society (R.H.S) at Wisley which is a 'mecca' for garden-lovers everywhere. 

Wisley is a very beautiful garden with romantic half-timbered Tudor-style buildings. The soil is mainly acid sand which is poor in nutrients and fast draining. There is a canal designed by Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe, a rock garden, formal and walled gardens, mixed borders, a rose garden, rock garden, glasshouses, a fruit field and an arboretum. Then there are the alpine gardens, the model vegetable gardens and a country garden by Penelope Hobhouse.

In 1878 George Ferguson Wilson, businessman, scientist, inventor and keen gardener, purchased the site and established 'The Oakwood Experimental Garden' with the idea of growing difficult plants successfully. Soon the garden was renowned for its collection of lilies, gentians, Japanese irises, primulas and water plants. Despite changes since then, it is still true to his original concept.

In 1903 on the death of Mr Wilson, Sir Thomas Hanbury bought the estate and presented it in trust to the R.H.S. With his eminent botanist brother Daniel, he was the founder in 1867 of the celebrated hillside garden of La Mortola, on the Italian Riviera (with which the R.H.S. remains closely concerned). 

West Green House is a quintessential English manor built of warm red bricks where busts of Gods and Emperors survey from their niches high in the house's facade the enchanting walled garden and the classical lakes and follies beyond.

This quiet corner of Southern England, seemingly untouched by the twenty first century, is in fact only 55 minutes drive from London.

Marylyn Abbott purchased the 99 year lease of West Green House from the National Trust in 1993. Since then it has been run as a private garden as the National Trust relinquished all financial and day to day involvement with the estate.

Taming an inherited jungle was only a beginning for West Green House; what the garden needed was vision, knowledge, taste, energy, expertise and imagination.

Marylyn Abbott had all those qualities. She learned her gardening in New South Wales, where her garden in Mittagong was the most visited in Australia and also recently featured in the BBC's Gardeners' World programme "Around the world in 80 gardens".

She found the quality of the light in England so different from Australia that she made a special study of its effects upon colour in the garden. Her book, "Gardening with Light and Colour", is a modern classic. 

It is in the mellow, eighteenth century walled kitchen garden that Marylyn Abbott's sense of design and colour finds its fullest expression. Here, with neat clipped box hedges, the borders overflow with plants in stunning colour combinations that change from year to year and throughout the seasons. Elegant trellis-work fruit cages draw you up to the potager where fruit and vegetables are grown in a decorative way - always ornamental but never chichi.

A grand water staircase, created by Marylyn Abbott, provides the focal point to the Nymphaeum fountain designed by Quinlan Terry. West Green House has many other features which are original and inspirational. By the house is a charming small topiary garden where water lilies flourish in small water tanks sunk in the ground. It runs up to a handsome aviary inhabited by unusual breeds of bantams and chickens. Beyond, is a dramatic new Persian water garden in a woodland glade, a newly restored lake, more follies and fancies, new walks and massive plantings of snowdrops, daffodils and fritillaries? Lavishness is a hallmark of the Abbott style –15000 tulip bulbs are planted every year – but Marylyn also emphasizes the importance of drama, colour, innovation and humour in the garden. The lessons for the visitor are endless: you cannot fail to be inspired, cheered, amused and delighted by this extraordinary garden.
Return to London and your hotel. (B + Afternoon Tea)

Sunday 29 May - Free day with optional visit to Kew Gardens

A free day to relax or further explore the many sights of London. For those tour members who would like to visit The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, it is a very short trip via the District Line to Richmond and a 5 minute walk from the station to the Gardens. You have been provided with an Oyster Travel Card which is valid for London Buses and Underground trains. 

This evening enjoy a farewell dinner at The First Floor Restaurant which is located in the heart of Notting Hill. Occupying a corner building on the famous Portobello Road, the restaurant has a Ground Floor Bar and Private Dining Rooms on the top floor. With its tall windows and grand chandelier the restaurant has old world elegance to it. The food is another story - up to speed modern European with some great British dishes. Walk up to the top floor and you enter an unexpected fairy tale world where gothic meets baroque.

Monday 30 May - Departure from London

Today is your last day in London before transferring to London Heathrow Airport for your flight back to South Africa. (B)

You may extend your holiday at this point. Please speak to one of our Specialists for options.

Tuesday 31 May – Arrival in South Africa

Arrive back in your home city today with many wonderful memories of your visit to the Spring Gardens of England.

Tour Services End


HOLIDAY COST:

R27, 200.00 share twin/double room accommodation from Johannesburg.

R4, 780.00 single room supplement

YOUR HOLIDAY COST INCLUDES:

• Economy class return flights with South African Airways from Johannesburg to London Heathrow
• Airport taxes & fuel surcharges
• 7 nights’ accommodation in London at the 4* Pestana Chelsea Bridge Hotel
• Daily Full English Breakfast
• Arrival and departure transfers airport/hotel/airport including luggage handling and Meet & Greet Assistant
• Welcome Dinner at the Orange Restaurant in Pimlico
• Farewell Dinner at the First Floor Restaurant in Notting Hill
• Transport to and from restaurants
• Full day and Half day sightseeing excursions by luxury coach as detailed in the itinerary
• A qualified guide to accompany guests on all full day and half day excursions
• Entrance ticket to Members Day at the Chelsea Flower Show
• Entrance tickets to: RHS Wisley, Denmans Gardens, Borde Hill Gardens, Great Dixter House & Gardens, Sissinghurst Castle Gardens, and Museum of Garden History.
• Entrance ticket to West Green Gardens including an introductory talk and afternoon tea
• Oyster Travel Card for Zones 1-2

YOUR HOLIDAY COST DOES NOT INCLUDE:

• Air fares from other cities in South Africa, please ask us for details
• Passport & visa costs (currently required by South African passport holders)
• Travel insurance which is recommended. Please ask us for details
• Items of a personal nature, and meals not mentioned in the tour programme
• Gratuities to Guides and drivers which are at guest’s discretion

Please Note: Because of the impossibility of knowing a year in advance exactly what the state of any garden will be we reserve the right to visit alternative gardens to those listed following up to date advice from local guides. This policy ensures that guests only see those gardens which are in their prime at the time of the tour.

This holiday is based on current rates of exchange and quoted air fares. It is subject to currency fluctuations at time of payment.