Chelsea Flower Show & Great English Gardens

Day 1 – Welcome to London

While London welcomes travelers through multiple airports, your garden trip with us begins at Heathrow. From there, you’ll make your way on foot to the Hilton London Heathrow Airport hotel, right outside Terminal 4. It’s an easy stroll that lets you shake off the flight and feel the excitement of what’s ahead.

At 6:30 PM, head down to the hotel restaurant where Chris and your fellow Carexplorers will be gathering. You’ll share stories, toast new friendships, and enjoy a Welcome Dinner together (on us, of course). This is where your garden journey across England truly begins! 

Accommodation: Hilton London Heathrow Airport
Included:  Dinner

Day 2 – Wisley and Knepp Estate

This morning, you will travel to the Royal Horticultural Society Garden, Wisley in Surrey. For more than 100 years, Wisley has been a centre of British gardening excellence. Although the garden spans 240 acres, your visit will focus on the demonstration gardens, showcasing everything from stream gardens and meadows to double borders. In May, plantings of camassia, roses, peonies, rhododendrons, and azaleas are of particular interest. Also not to be missed are the perennial borders near the Glasshouse, created by influential designers Tom Stuart-Smith and Piet Oudolf. You will enjoy lunch here at Wisley as well (included).

Set within a pioneering rewilding landscape, you will then stop at the Knepp Estate. You’ll have a couple of hours to stroll through the Walled Garden — a more intimate space where Knepp’s rewilding principles are being explored. Its owners, Isabella Tree and Charles Burrell, have collaborated on this project with some of the leading minds in gardening, including Tom Stuart-Smith, Mick Crawley, James Hitchmough, and Jekka McVicar. Together, they are experimenting with ways to create complex habitats that support wildlife while allowing useful plants to thrive. The aim is to work with nature rather than control it — and you’ll experience what that looks like up close.

Accommodation: Ashdown Park Hotel, East Grinstead
Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 3 – Fairlight End, Great Dixter and Sissinghurst

You set off early today, traveling through the Sussex countryside, while the morning unfolds on the move. Fields, hedgerows, villages-that-look-like-film-sets… you get the picture. And just when you’re nicely settled in, you arrive somewhere that snaps you back to attention.

Fairlight End. A private garden on land that slopes steeply down from the house, through wildflower meadows, to a pond that catches the light. As you walk through the space, every level of the garden is drawing your eyes further down and out into the countryside. 

When Chris and Robin Hutt bought the place in 2004, they were faced with a challenge: how to work with a slope that didn’t want to be tamed. So they brought in landscape architect Ian Kitson, whose signature gesture is the curve. He inserted a single curvaceous Corten steel retaining wall to separate the more refined garden near the house from the wilder areas below. The garden leaves you with that rare sense of everything being exactly where it should be, even its wild parts.

This afternoon, you will continue to Great Dixter, perhaps the most celebrated and beloved of all English gardens. It stands as a living tribute to its late owner, plantsman, and writer Christopher Lloyd. Head gardener Fergus Garrett, who worked closely with Lloyd in his final years, continues his legacy of bold experimentation. While the garden’s structure dates from the early 20th century, the planting style feels distinctly contemporary. Under Garrett’s guidance, the garden is maintained and developed to an exceptional standard, making it unlike any other. Great Dixter is a visionary, exuberant haven for plant lovers, where you will experience contemporary planting design at its very best.

You will end the day at the iconic Sissinghurst Castle Garden. These renowned gardens are the result of the vision and dedication of writer Vita Sackville-West and her husband, diplomat Harold Nicolson. In the 1930s, he designed the garden’s formal structure, while she filled it with rich, romantic plantings. As you explore the series of famous garden rooms, be sure to climb the tower for sweeping panoramic views. From this vantage point, it’s easy to understand why so many garden enthusiasts consider a visit to Sissinghurst an essential pilgrimage.

Accommodation: Ashdown Park Hotel, East Grinstead
Included: Breakfast & Dinner

Day 4 – Rousham Gardens & Kiftsgate with lunch

After yesterday’s three-garden marathon, you’re waking up in Stratford-upon-Avon. New accommodation, new energy, and breakfast waiting for you downstairs (included, as always).

Today’s pace is a bit gentler, starting with Rousham Garden.This is the only 18th-century garden on your itinerary, considered by many to be the single best example of a landscape garden in the country. William Kent, the landscape designer who convinced England’s grand estates to ditch the formal approach and embrace natural landscapes instead, designed it back in the 17s. Little has changed over the centuries at Rousham. The views and accents Kent designed are still there for us to enjoy today. While wandering through it, make sure to leave enough time to check out the walled garden with its long double borders, pigeon house, and kitchen garden.

By afternoon, you’re at Kiftsgate, a garden shaped by three generations of women from the same family, each one leaving her mark while respecting what came before. Heather Muir started it in the 1920s with no formal plan, just instinct and a bold eye. Her daughter, Diany Binny, took over in the 1950s and added a semicircular swimming pool on the lower level, brought in sculptural pieces, and opened the garden to the public for the first time. Now it’s Anne Chambers, Binny’s daughter, who’s continuing the work. Her new Water Garden is a contemporary oasis, a proof that she’s not interested in preserving the past so much as pushing it forward into the 21st century.

Tonight’s dinner with your fellow Carexplorers is a good time to catch your breath and realize: you’re halfway through the trip. It’s gone fast, but we promise, the second half won’t disappoint either. 

Accommodation: Ettington Park Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon
Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 5 – Pettifers & Free afternoon

You’re heading to Pettifers – a stylish townhouse garden, this morning that proves you don’t need decades of gardening experience to create something stunning. Owner Gina Price started in the early 1990s with a conventional, old-fashioned setup and barely any gardening know-how. Gradually, by visiting other gardens and asking for criticism from knowledgeable friends, Price began editing. 

Walk through it now and you’ll see unusual plant combinations, vivid colors that shouldn’t work together but absolutely do, all held in place by a confident structure. Price admits the New Perennials Movement shaped her thinking, but says she couldn’t have a garden without English prettiness. At Pettifers, she’s managed to have both, and somehow, it all works. You’ll tour the garden with Polly, the head gardener, who knows every corner of this place.

The afternoon is yours. You don’t need to rush for any group visits. It’s your free time to explore Stratford-upon-Avon, the medieval market town where Shakespeare was born and where the Royal Shakespeare Company still calls home.

Wander the streets lined with timber-and-white façades and thatched roofs. Check out the cultural sites tied to Shakespeare if that’s your thing… Or skip all that and browse the boutiques for something special to bring home. It’s your call.

Tonight, dinner is on us, so show up hungry and ready to compare notes on how everyone spent their free afternoon.

Accommodation: Ettington Park Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon
Included: Breakfast, Dinner

Day 6 – Broughton Grange and Hidcote

In the morning, you’re heading to Broughton Grange Gardens in the Oxfordshire hills, where the fusion of historic charm and contemporary design captures many-a-gardening imagination. Originally developed in the 19th century as part of a private estate, the gardens underwent a transformative redesign in 2001 by renowned landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith. The garden’s centerpiece is a modern walled garden with carefully layered planting that contrasts beautifully with the older oak woodlands and Victorian glasshouses still scattered across the grounds.

There are certain gardens that show up in almost every book about English garden design. Hidcote Manor Garden is one of them. And today, you’ll get to experience what all the fuss is about. 

Lawrence Johnston, an American plantsman with a strong sense of design, started creating the garden in 1907. What he built is widely considered a masterpiece: a series of hedged, intimate outdoor rooms, each with its individual character, linked by narrow passageways that eventually lead to lawns and views of the countryside beyond. Throughout, Johnston didn’t just plant what was available locally; he went on plant collecting trips and brought back specimens that made Hidcote unlike anywhere else.

It’s noteworthy that Hidcote, with its themed garden rooms, changed how gardens were made in England and still influences garden-makers today.

Tonight, dinner’s included back at the hotel. You’re deep into the trip now – soak it all in.

Accommodation: Ettington Park Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon
Included: Breakfast & Dinner

Day 7 – The Long Barn & Gravetye Manor

You’ve made it to the last full day of garden visits. You’ll spend the morning in the Kent countryside at Long Barn, a garden that’s all literary-romance and Arts-and-Crafts charm.

Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson created it in the early 20th century, before they moved to the famous Sissinghurst, which you visited a few days ago. Long Barn was their horticultural experiment and a retreat place for creatives like Virginia Woolf. Walk through it now and you can still feel that energy of its past. 

Clipped topiary lines the terraces. Lavender spills over ancient stone walls. Roses climb the timbered barn that gave this garden its name. It’s a story-filled, layered, and harmonious space that will stay with you long after you’ve left.

From there, you’re heading to Gravetye Manor – a country house hotel where lunch means Michelin Star dining. But before you eat, you’ll stroll the gardens with views stretching out over the surrounding countryside.

A century ago, Irish writer and designer William Robinson owned this place and used the gardens to prove his ideas about naturalism and wild gardening. You’ll see untamed plantings contrasted with more structured areas close to the house. The gardens have been extensively restored since then, but this isn’t some historical recreation frozen in time.

Tom Coward, the current head gardener, who spent time at Great Dixter before coming here, brought that bold, experimental spirit with him. What you’ll experience is a garden that honors Robinson’s vision but isn’t afraid to push into the 21st century design.

In the afternoon, you’ll head back to London and the Hilton London Heathrow Airport, where this trip began. Dinner’s on us tonight, so eat well and get some rest – tomorrow’s the big one.

Accommodation: Hilton London Heathrow Hotel
Included: Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner

Day 8 – Garden Museum and Chelsea Flower Show

Your garden enthusiast group will hit the ground running early today, with a visit to round off all our garden learnings at the Garden Museum. The museum is all about British gardens and gardening, with temporary exhibits and displays from its permanent collection. Here, we’ll find everything from ancient gardening tools to contemporary innovations. We’ll learn how gardens influenced entire societies. And we’ll follow the stories of the brave (or perhaps even slightly mad) plant hunters who went to the far corners of the world to bring exotic plants back home.

Last but not least, you’ll enjoy a thrilling afternoon spent at the Chelsea Flower Show. Each year, this garden event attracts gardeners and designers from every corner of the globe. The show consistently celebrates design excellence with its Best in Show, Best Fresh Garden, and Best Artisan Garden competitions. The Great Pavilion, where nurseries and plant societies exhibit the best and newest in international horticulture, is not to be missed. We’ll be tired but inspired by the time we leave, having explored what many call the best garden show in the world.

Tonight, we celebrated our grand garden tour together over a farewell dinner. It’s your last chance to share stories, swap notes, and toast to a week well spent in some of England’s finest gardens.

Accommodation: Hilton London Heathrow Hotel
Included: Breakfast & Dinner

Day 9 – Departure Day

Our time together comes to an end. Some of you will head home today. Others might stick around London or continue the adventure elsewhere. Either way, you’ve got one last breakfast before you go. Safe travels, and until the next garden tour calls.

Included: Breakfast