Garden Designers Rountable: Garden Travel

I love to talk about travel — I could do it all day long.

Travel at its best is all about adventure…setting out with the sole intention to experience something new, try something different, get inspired, or challenge yourself.  Garden travel doesn’t have to be exotic to be a good adventure and my most memorable adventures are those places where the magic of the place intersected with the mood, the details, and the memories of the day.  This post, I think, it a perfect excuse to share some of my favorite garden places with you.

1) Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen Denmark — unlike any normal amusement park that I had visited before, this place felt like a magical throwback to another time.  The vast variety of lights that warm this place in the evening provides as much excitement as the rides, the wonderful restaurants, and convivial atmosphere.  All garden lighting since has been compared to this standard.

2) Sissinghurst Castle, England– Ok, this is easily the most cliche garden visit place ever, and I have to admit, I wanted to cross it off my list for that reason alone.  But to not tell you about the amazing arrangement of spring bulbs under the Lime Walk would be a shame.  It stopped me in my tracks, it’s a forever garden memory and I strive for this genius in bulb planting. (note this really great picture does not show the bulbs….I wish I had something other than my minds eye to share the scene with you…but try to imagine…)

3) Clock Barn Garden, Carlisle, MA.   Opened for only a day on the Garden Conservancy tour, this private garden is the epitome of what I want to create at my home.  A beautiful mix of vegetables, chickens, water, glasshouses, experimental planting beds, flower drying sheds, gorgeous barns and every single thing I could ever possibly want in my own garden.  I am so hopeful that it is open again soon…I need to wander in wonder again.

4) NorthCourt, Isle of Wight, England. The B&B is nice – your typical Jacobean pile with a pretty English garden.  But the garden is made so much more wonderful because down a sweet path, through some trees, and around some hedges is suddenly a wonderful pub.  The magic of walking through a garden to a cozy place where friends gather for good food and cheer is one of my all time best travel memories.  Now I think every great garden should have a pub at the end of a path.

5)  The wildflowers of the Colorado Rockies are amongst the most astoundingly beautiful things I will ever enjoy.  I have enjoyed picking them as a child, receiving them as gifts, carrying them down the aisle and trying to recreate them in gardens that I have cultivated.  If you want to see the best of them….check out the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival….or just go for a walk in the woods in July.

 These are the gardens and landscapes that have etched a place in my heart and psyche as I have traveled.  I am wondering what adventures you have had in the garden and the landscape that you might want to share?

images from Tivoli Garden Lights from Steve Danko,  The Lime walk (without the bulbs) from Stephen Orr, and NorthCourt. 

Also make sure to check out the Garden Travel posts of my GDRT compatriots.

Fern Richardson : Life on the Balcony : Orange County CA

Susan Morrison : Blue Planet Garden Blog : East Bay, CA

Susan Cohan : Miss Rumphius’ Rules : Chatham, NJ

Scott Hokunson : Blue Heron Landscapes : Granby, CT

Rebecca Sweet : Gossip In The Garden : Los Altos, CA

Lesley Hegarty & Robert Webber : Hegarty Webber Partnership : Bristol, UK

Genevieve Schmidt : North Coast Gardening : Arcata, CA

David Cristiani : The Desert Edge : Albuquerque NM