Gardens of Norfolk
The Walled Gardens at Holkham are special to me because they are where I began my career in horticulture. Inside those walls you feel what a walled garden is truly for: shelter, productivity and beauty working together. Returning is always deeply personal.
About this tour
Norfolk has a quiet confidence about it. The skies feel bigger, the light is softer, and the landscape has a spaciousness that slows your pace. I love bringing gardeners here because Norfolk does not shout for attention, yet it consistently delivers: great design, serious plant knowledge, and gardens that feel rooted in place.
It is a county shaped by coast and countryside, by big estates and small nurseries, and by a long tradition of people who understand plants as living craft. This tour takes in a wonderful mix of grand landscapes and intimate, plant-led gardens, each a different lesson in how a garden can be shaped by wind, light, soil and history while still feeling personal.
Garden highlights
- Holkham Walled Garden - a working walled garden where David began his career
- East Ruston Old Vicarage Garden - atmospheric coastal planting and garden rooms
- Blickling Estate - long borders and strong historic structure
- Houghton Hall and Gardens - heritage with confident contemporary garden-making
- Pensthorpe Natural Park - naturalistic, wildlife-led planting
Destination highlights
- Norfolk's big skies and famous coastal light
- Walled gardens and the microclimates that make them work
- Gardening well in exposed, windy conditions
- Grasses, seed heads and naturalistic planting at Pensthorpe
- A county of big estates and small specialist nurseries
Interested in this tour?
These tours come round again, and the best way to make sure you do not miss the next one is to join my email list. You will be among the first to hear when new dates are announced, with practical, seasonal gardening from me along the way.
What you'll learn
Norfolk is a masterclass in gardening with the weather rather than against it. You will look at how shelter, structure and bold plant choices create abundance in exposed, coastal conditions, how repetition brings calm to a long border, and how grasses and seed heads extend the season. Holkham and East Ruston in particular show how to make a garden thrive where wind and salt are constant, with ideas that are inspiring and genuinely achievable at home.
Gardens you'll visit
Beyond the gardens
There is something restorative about this part of the country. The pace is gentler, the horizons are wider, and the gardens seem to breathe with the landscape rather than compete with it. Between visits there is the Norfolk coast and countryside itself, the big skies and soft light that give the county its character, and time to let the ideas settle.
By the end of the tour I hope you will feel you have experienced a region with a real horticultural identity. Norfolk gardens have soul, shaped by weather and light, by history and hard work, and by gardeners who know the best results come from patience and observation. It is the sort of trip that sends you home with a clearer eye and a notebook full of ideas you will want to try.