In 2012, I hit on the idea of doing a garden tour in Holland to coincide with the huge Floriade event that is held there once every 10 years.
I figured it would be a popular tour because of the appeal of Floriade but also because I intended to include a visit to the famous Dutch flower-bulb garden, the Keukenhof.
I had other destinations in Holland in mind as well as a few private gardens in Belgium since I was once part of a special tour for journalists there a few years earlier, put on by the Dutch bulb industry.
However, I realized that this itinerary would not be enough, as good as it sounded; it needed something more to make it terrific.
That’s when I came up with the idea that we could also go to England – take the cross-Channel train from Belgium and end up in London, just in time for the Chelsea Flower Show.
Keukenhof in May
This would also be an opportunity to visit some fabulous English gardens, such as Sissinghurst and Great Dixter in Kent, as well as Hampton Court and Kew Gardens.
What I was not expecting was that we would be overwhelmed by the response. We quickly booked 45 people and then more and more were asking to go. Many more. What were we to do?
Our agent in Vancouver said there were just too many people to say no to. He asked if we would consider doing two tours. I said it was problematic trying to go backwards from London after the Chelsea Flowers Show and still seeing gardens at their peak at the Keukenhof.
Keukenhof and Dutch flower auction
Instead, we came up with a plan – to offer a second tour, only this one from London to the northern gardens of England, calling at Oxfordshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire and Northumberland, before moving into Scotland with visits to Edinburgh and Glasgow.
This idea turned out to be a winner and we ended up selling out both tours which included visits to more than 20 world-class gardens across four countries.
Goedegebuure in Nunspeet and Weesp
The Holland tour got off to a great start with everyone arriving on time in Amsterdam.
One of the first things we did was visit the famous Dutch flower auction in Aalsmeer where more than 20 million flowers are sold everyday and distributed throughout Europe.
Our visit to the Keukenhof was splendid. I was worried that we would be too late to see major bulb displays but I was wrong and the garden looked terrific with thousands of tulips blooming as well as other spring-flowering perennials. The trees were also fully leafed out which gave the garden a more complete look.
From Amsterdam, we went to Nunspeet to see cutting-edge garden designs by one of Holland’s top landscape architects, L. J. Goedegebuure.
In a wonderfully compact complex of small gardens, we saw outstanding examples of a shade garden, shrub garden, moor garden, grasses garden, herb garden, rock garden, rose courtyard and Alhambra-style garden, all within a 4.5-hectare area.
Jacqueline van der Kloet, the Keukenhof’s leading designer, also agreed to show us her private garden, the Tea Garden in Weesp. The village of Weesp was a stunning work of beauty in its own right.
Next, we left Amsterdam and travelled down to Venlo for the Floriade, which was delightful with all sorts of quirky horticultural ideas and wonderful displays. The theme of the show was “theatre of nature”.
We also popped into one of my favourite garden complexes at Appeltern to see more than 200 model gardens, all laid out in an intimately connected 15-hectare complex.
From the Netherlands, we moved into Belgium, where we saw two beautiful private gardens in Assenede before heading into Bruges for some free time exploring one of Europe’s oldest and most picturesque cities.
In Nunspeet and Floriade
The train ride through the Channel to England was memorable. We opened champagne when we came up on the English side.
In London, we visited Kew and Hampton Court, nipped down to Kent for the day to visit Sissinghurst and Great Dixter gardens, and then concluded our tour with time sightseeing in London and going to the wonderfully entertaining Chelsea Flower Show.
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Chelsea, Kew, Amsterdam and Keukenhof.
