Upcoming England-Wales-Ireland Tour
Next month, I will be leading two back-to-back garden tours to England, North Wales, Ireland and then to the Chelsea Flower Show in London.
Each day of these tours I will be posting stories and photographs here. You can follow along with us as we move. And you will get to see and hear about some of the fabulous gardens...
Time to love those cherry blossoms
It's time to stop and notice the cherry blossoms. That's the message the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is trying to get across this month.
The month-long festival started March 30 and run to the end of April. It's a wonderful opportunity for all of us to pause and take notice of the glorious cherry blossoms blooming all over the Lower...
10 favourite shrubs
Buddleia davidii ‘Black Knight’ (butterfly bush)
Walk into any garden and most of the plants you see come from other parts of the world. Buddleia, the butterfly bush, originates from the Sichuan and Hubei areas of China. It gets its name because it has the uncanny knack of attracting butterflies. ‘Black Knight’ is one of the most beautiful and reliable...
My garden tours are a big hit
Over the past eight years, I have led 20 garden tours around the world. My first tour was a cruise around Italy and to Croatia, starting in Rome and visiting Florence and Sicily and Venice and seeing some spectacular gardens on the way - Villa d'Este outside Rome, Boboli garden in Florence, Villa Cimbrone in Ravello and the botanical...
Golden memories of great Welsh garden Powis Castle
In May, I will be taking a group to North Wales to see some of the loveliest gardens there.
One of them is Powis Castle garden, just outside Welshpool.
I have been there twice before. The first time, I walked down the terraces from the house (castle) with its red brick walls and to the Orangery where I saw a magnificent...
Hedges damaged by heavy snows get the chop
We knew this would be the outcome. The heavy snow of winter crushed many plants, especially hedges throughout Metro Vancouver. We could see the damage right away. The snow came so fast overnight and was so wet and heavy by morning that there was little gardeners could do to save their treasured plants.
Now, in spring, we see the results....
Chelsea Flower Show 2017
Chelsea Flower Show, the classiest garden show in the world, will be held this year from May 23-27 on the famous Chelsea Hospital site next to the River Thames in London.
You can find out all about it and how to get tickets at the Royal Horticultural Society site.
Protected: Longwood introduces another winning clivia
Longwood Gardens, the magnificent 1,077-acre garden estate built by Pierre du Pont, is a wonderful place to visit any time of year.
When I visited in March, the conservatory contained thrilling displays of orchids, echium, bromeliads and clerodendrum.
But for the past forty years, the garden has been doing outstanding work hybridizing clivia. It was a breeding program started in 1976...
Philadelphia Flower Show was again a knockout
Philadelphia Flower Show, the world's oldest and biggest garden show, was again a huge success this year with the theme, Holland: Flowering the World, a homage to Dutch horticultural expertise.
It was the third time I have attended the show and again it packed a magical artistic punch with sensational, artistic floral displays and great individual show gardens.
For the Dutch theme,...
David Austin introduces more beautiful roses
Austin roses has introduced several new varieties over the past few years, including Sir Walter Scott, Desdemona, Roald Dahl, Bathsheba, The Ancient Mariner, Olivia Rose, The Lady of the Lake, Poet’s Wife and Imogen. To see them all go to Austin Roses UK site.
“Our new roses each make their own special contribution to the diversity of our collection. Whilst all...
PHILADELPHIA 2014
On February 27, 2014, I took a group to Philadelphia, primarily to see the famous flower and garden show held there every spring, but also to visit some of the city’s historic sites and art galleries as well as the exceptional Longwood Gardens.
Getting to Philadelphia from Vancouver is never that easy. You can fly via Toronto but there is...
ENGLAND TOUR 2016
In May, 2016, I was in Shepherd’s Bush, London, meeting people at our hotel there to start a 12-day tour to the West Country and the Sicily Isles before returning to London for the Chelsea Flower Show.
The goal of the tour was to spend as much time exploring the beauty, as well as historic and cultural wonders of the...
SOUTHERN FRANCE 2013
Once the Southern Italy came to a happy conclusion in Catania, Sicily, we flew to Aix-en-Province to get ready for our next tour, one from Provence to the Cote d’Azure.
With a few advance days in Aix to prepare for the tour, we managed to see a few sights, such as Cezanne’s studio, and pausing for a cafe latte on...
JAPAN 2014
In April, 2014, I took 42 people on a 14-day tour of Japan, starting out in Tokyo and ending in Kyoto, visiting many famous gardens and cultural highlights along the way.Our flight to Tokyo was historic since it was one of All Nippon Airways’ new direct flights from Vancouver to Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
Great gardens were the main focus and...
ENGLAND WEST COUNTRY TOUR 2010
In May, 2010, we did our first land-tour in England, starting out in London and going down to the West Country to see gardens in Somerset and Cornwall before heading back to London, via Gloucestershire and Oxford, for the finale - the Chelsea Flower Show.
This tour got off to a bit of a rocky start because a volcano erupted...
ITALY 2015 TOUR No. 1
In September, 2015, I led two tours back-to-back in Italy, starting in Venice and moving to Tuscany before continuing on to Puglia (in the heel of Italy) for the final days.
When we decided to launch this tour, we told our booking agent that we were only interested in doing one tour, even though we realized it might be popular....
SPAIN-MOROCCO 2014
In September, 2014, we went to Spain, where we first gathered for a few days in Madrid before heading south to Toledo, Cordoba, Seville and Granada, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa to visit the key towns and cities of Morocco.
Early fall is the perfect time of year to be in Madrid: Not too hot during...
FRANCE TOUR 2011/ No. 2
The hard part of doing back-to-back tours is that you have to say goodbye to one group and hello to a new group and show no loss of interest or energy or enthusiasm.
This is, of course, not that hard, since we were in France and we were going to retrace all the steps we did with the first...
ITALY LAKES TOUR 2011
After the success of our England West Country Tour and our two back-to-back France/Paris/Loire Tours, it only seemed natural to think about going back to Italy. We love Italy and have never had a bad time there. But which part of Italy to go to? That was the question.
In 2004, Loraine and I had been to Milan and gone...
FRANCE TOUR 2011 /No 1
After the success of the England West Country tour, it seemed only natural to look over to France and think about next doing a tour there.
In 2011, we launched a spring tour that started in Paris and then moved into the Loire Valley and slowly returned to Paris after we visited various gardens and wineries
It was a total shock...
