Chelsea Flower Show, London, and European Garden Tours

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW AND EUROPEAN GARDEN TOURS

If you are a garden lover like I am, surely a visit to the Chelsea Flower Show is on your Bucket List? When I am not reading about travel , I am studying garden books. It is the most famous flower show in the world, bursting with fragrance and color. It is held every year for 5 days in May, and 2021 is currently scheduled for Tuesday through Sunday, May 18-23, 8.00 am to 8.00 p.m. with Sunday 8.00 am to 5.30 p.m. and the Royal Horticultural Society does a magnificent job of showing you the latest in garden tools, flower arrangements, garden design, and you can buy books and plants. You are on brain overload after a full day of attending this event. We are all praying that it will be safe to travel by next Spring. If not, then we dream for 2022.

Why stop there, you could go on a nine day tour of the best loved British gardens, visiting Parham House, Sissinghurst, Great Dixter, Wisley, Hidcote Manor, Kiftsgate Court, Highgrove (Prince Charles’s home ) and Blenheim Palace. The tours are lead by garden experts, and you learn so much each day. These names might not mean anything to you, but if you are a member of a garden club, or the Royal Horticultural Society I am sure you have read something about them, all famous in their own way.

Garden tours are very popular, with both men and women of all ages, and there is also a five day tour of the gardens in the Cotswolds, a lovely part of England, visiting the gardens of Buscot Park, Malmesbury, Highgrove, Hidcote Manor and Kiftsgate Court. This tour with a few days in London would be a wonderful holiday. These garden tours are great if you are a single traveler.

I love the seven day tour of the Netherlands and Belgium, visiting the worlds largest flower auction where l9 million flowers and plants a day begin their journey to florists around the world. A tour of Keukenhof in the heart of the Dutch flower growing area is wonderful. Many years ago I bought 3,000 Tulip bulbs, and when it came to planting them in the garden at my Lake Tahoe home months later, my husband was furious that I had ordered so many. I was amazed at all the boxes, I must have been carried away with the different options. For me to plant them one at a time, I would have still been doing it when the snow arrived. In the end, he dug huge trenches, and I quickly dropped the bulbs from each box and covered the hole. I thought I would be winning a prize from the Truckee Garden Club for the prettiest garden in the High Sierras. I even spent $300 on red cayenne pepper, and sprinkled it over all the trenches which was supposed to be a squirrel deterrent. Alas, the squirrels were sitting watching me, and they ate them all over the winter. I have never heard the end of my tulipmania from my husband. That Spring, I saw one lousy tulip. This is a wonderful tour, go to the Rijksmuseum, visit Aalsmeer, learn the art of cheese making, and end up in Bruges, the Venice of the North.

Italy is always one of the top destinations for people and an 11 day tour of the Great Gardens of Italy is something different. The Italian lakes is a wonderful region, Lake Maggiore, Lake Como, and then go to Florence, and Rome visiting the Vatican.

The top ten gardens in Europe are:

1. Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France

2. Generalife, Alhambra, Granada, Spain

3. Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, Italy

4. Gardens of Versailes, ile de France, France

5. Powerscourt, Dublin, Ireland

6. Luxenbourg Gardens, Paris, France

7. Keukenhof Gardens, Lisse, the Netherlands

8. Highgrove, Tetbury, Great Britain

Even if you only go to visit one garden, I find it very rewarding and its nice to dream, oh if only my garden looked like that.

Maureen Jones

All Horizons Travel/Frosch

825 Santa Cruz Ave

Menlo Park, CA 94025

650-961-2340 direct

www.froschvacations.com