Gardens of Norfolk

Friday 30^th July – Monday 2^nd August 2010

£295.00 (plus single room supplement)

To register interest email Phil Broughton: treasurer@edgworth-horticultural-society.co.uk

or call me on 01204 300541

Friday 30 July 2010

We depart from either the Barlow Institute or Bromley Cross Satation and head for Norfolk, breaking our journey en route with a visit to the gardens at Belton House, by Grantham. Surrounding a fine Restoration house these delightful formal gardens include a 19^th century Orangery, Dutch gardens and an Italian Garden with fountains.

We continue to our accommodation in Norwich, the 3-star Holiday Inn, which has a peaceful, suburban location yet is less than 2 miles from the city centre. All rooms have en-suite bathrooms together with minibar, satellite TV and tea/coffee-making facilities and the hotel also has full leisure facilities including a 13m heated indoor swimming pool. Dinner is served in the evening.

Saturday 31 July 2010

Enjoy your breakfast. The first of our three garden visits today is to Corpusty Mill, the private garden of Roger Last. The main garden is to one side of the house, and consists of lawns, pools, a woodland garden, water garden, and kitchen garden, bounded on one side by a long flint wall. Water is a feature of the garden and is to be found in pools, a rill, water masks, streams, a small lake, the mill overflow stream - and in the River Bure, which flows under the mill and forms one boundary of the garden. The lake is in the landscaped meadow behind the Mill - by the water is a stone cave with a large gunnera above. A modern folly, a seven-metre stainless steel spire, acts as an eye catcher.

Next we visit Felbrigg Hall, one of the finest 17th-century country houses in East Anglia. The Walled Garden has been restored and features a series of potager gardens, a working dovecote and the National Collection of Colchicums. The park, through which there are waymarked walks, is well known for its magnificent and aged trees. There are also walks to the church and lake and through the 500 acres of woods.

The afternoon will be spent at the breathtaking 20-acre East Ruston Old Vicarage garden, which for many will be the highlight of our visit to Norfolk, home of the unstoppable gardeners Alan Gray and Graham Robeson. It is quite unbelievable that such an exotic garden can lie less than two miles from the North Sea. With the benefit of good shelter beds and hedging it has been possible to grow many plants not normally associated with Norfolk. This is truly one of Britain’s great new gardens. We return to our hotel, where dinner is served in the evening.

Sunday 1 August 2010

After breakfast today we travel to the gardens at Bressingham, where the aptly named Bloom family have created two excellent gardens and a wide-ranging nursery. In his own Dell Garden, the late Alan Bloom put his influential ideas into practice, with a huge range of herbaceous perennials grown in his sweeping island beds. Alan’s son Adrian has a garden nearby at Foggy Bottom, where there is an admirable collection of trees, shrubs, perennials and grasses. Lunch will be available here (not included).

Back in the centre of Norwich we visit three relatively small but very interesting gardens. Jon Kelf’s Jungle Garden is a former winner of the ‘Best Garden in Britain’ competition. Five levels of decking are surrounded by dense, lush, exotic planting, with over 200 different and unusual plants including palms, bamboos, bananas, gingers and cannas.

Also tucked away in the city centre is the private Exotic Gardenof Will Giles (exotic gardener and writer for various publications including BBC Gardeners’ World). In this somewhat unlikely setting, we are transported to the tropics, where we see houseplants in the garden and bromeliads in the branches of trees, surrounded by tree ferns. In high summer the garden becomes quite magical, full of hidden corners and a riot of colour. The air is filled with the intoxicating scent of Jasmine, Brugmansia (Angels’ Trumpets) and towering bananas form massive canopies to walk under.

Close to this is Mr and Mrs Palmer’s private garden Hawthorn House, a multi-level terraced garden with substantial, impressive topiary, artistically managed shrubs and fine mature trees. The garden has a varied feel combining formal and woodland areas with some striking vistas. (The group will split into two, with one half visiting the Exotic Garden while the other visits Hawthorn House and then swap over.)

Monday 2 August 2010

After breakfast we check out of the hotel and depart for our final visit, Easton Walled Garden, near Grantham – 12 acres of lost gardens which 400 years of gardening have created. Until winter of 2001 these gardens had been completely abandoned for 50 years. Now following five years of renovation you can see more than a restoration project, with snowdrops, sweet peas, irises, David Austin Roses, 100 varieties of daffodils and the popular cut flower garden. There are walks, drifts of bulbs, meadow borders, auricula theatres, a cottage garden and a turf maze.

We then return to our original departure points, where arrival is due in the early evening.

Included in the price

· 3 nights at the 3-star Holiday Inn, Ipswich Road, Norwich on a dinner, bed and English breakfast basis.

· Comfortable coaching throughout.

· Entrance to the gardens of Belton House, Felbrigg Hall, Corpusty Mill, East Ruston Old Vicarage, Bressingham, the Exotic Garden, the Jungle Garden, Hawthorn House and Easton Walled Garden.

· Services of a Brightwater Holidays guide.

Not included (per person)

· Single room £60.00