Gardens of The Cotswolds
Bourton House is unmissable for its plantsmanship, generous herbaceous borders and calm structure. Its modern, elegant planting feels welcoming, the garden is beautifully maintained, and there are masses of practical, borrowable ideas to use back at home.
About this tour
The Gardens of the Cotswolds tour I am leading for Ace Cultural Tours offers a truly unparalleled experience for garden enthusiasts. Exquisite planting schemes are bathed in the glow of golden stone, and the rolling hills, the ‘wolds’, form an idyllic backdrop to some of the world’s most famous garden designs. I love guiding people through this landscape because it rewards both the casual admirer and the keen plantsman: you can enjoy the sheer beauty, and you can also read the gardens like a set of thoughtful, practical lessons.
Garden highlights
- Hidcote - world-famous garden rooms and a collector's planting
- Kiftsgate Court - three generations of women gardeners, and superb roses
- Bourton House - crisp topiary and generous herbaceous borders
- Miserden Park - Arts and Crafts design on a sustainable estate
- Sezincote - a Humphry Repton landscape and Mughal-inspired water
- Highgrove - the King's organic gardens, hoped to be included
Destination highlights
- The honey-coloured stone of the Cotswold villages
- The open 'wolds' and long views towards the Malvern Hills
- Sezincote's Indian-style house near Moreton-in-Marsh
- Conversations with the gardens' head gardeners
- Highgrove, the organic gardens of King Charles III, hoped to be included
Booking details
What you'll learn
Across the tour you will sharpen your eye for the things that make these gardens work: reading the bones of a garden, the clipped forms, strong axes and well-placed punctuation that give planting a stage. You will see how the honey-coloured Cotswold stone shapes a palette of soft blues, silvers, whites and dusky pinks, how hedges and walls borrow the wider landscape and create shelter and microclimates, and how repetition and restraint bring cohesion. Time alongside the head gardeners adds the practical detail, soil care, composting and the small decisions that keep borders healthy and resilient.
Gardens you'll visit
Hidcote
Lawrence Johnston's masterpiece of garden rooms, each with its own mood and palette, yet flowing as one coherent journey. A lesson in how hedges, repetition and enclosure make a garden feel bigger and its colour richer.
Kiftsgate Court
The creation of three generations of women gardeners. Famous for its roses, with a calm sunken white garden and a richly layered double border in pink, mauve and grey, and long views to the Malvern Hills.
Bourton House
A modern Cotswolds classic, crisp and confident yet welcoming. Strong topiary gives year-round structure, and the herbaceous borders show how repetition and a few well-judged contrasts keep planting lively.
Miserden Park
Arts and Crafts design on a family estate with a real commitment to sustainability, with flowering beds, shrubs and topiary and elements of Edwin Lutyens. A garden for talking stewardship: soil care, composting and long-term harmony.
Sezincote
A striking change of mood near Moreton-in-Marsh: a Humphry Repton landscape around an Indian-style house, with Mughal motifs and water that evoke a sense of paradise.
Highgrove (hoped to be included)
The private gardens of King Charles III and Queen Camilla, regenerated over 40 years on organic and sustainable principles, the ethos visible in the health of the planting.
Beyond the gardens
There is more to the week than the borders. The honey-coloured stone, the open ‘wolds’ and the long views towards the Malvern Hills give the whole tour its particular Cotswold character. Some of the richest moments come in conversation with the head gardeners, where you learn why a border is planted as it is, what thrives in a given microclimate, and how each garden’s history still shapes its choices today.
By the end of the tour my hope is that you will take home more than photographs. You will have a sharper eye for structure, a better understanding of planting styles, and practical ideas you can apply, whether that is creating a garden room, refining a colour palette, or simply learning to trust repetition and restraint. Most of all you will leave with that quiet, energising feeling the Cotswolds do so well: that gardening is both art and craft, and that beauty can be built thoughtfully, season by season.
Previous departures
A few moments from garden tours in The Cotswolds
