Garden Visit

The Wrap Up: Hidden Design Festival 2015

Hidden Design Festival offers a look at some of Sydney’s most exciting, professionally designed gardens. Here’s a look at a bit of what caught our eye this year.

​Sunday’s garden: Growing Heide

A new book tells the story of one of Australia’s most culturally significant gardens – that at Heide, the home, for fifty years, of John and Sunday Reed.

5 Best Garden Shows in the World

For jaw-dropping garden style and sheer floral beauty you can’t beat a walk around one of the world’s best garden shows. This is our pick of the top five, in no particular order.

7 great ideas from Holland's Floriade

Once a decade the horticultural industry of Holland celebrates with a grand expo called Floriade. Each massive event is held in a different place and in 2012 it was carved out of a forest near Venlo, close to the Dutch border with Germany. Ideas? Well it had a few!

A Taste of Japan

The cherry blossom is divine, but don't miss these other quintessential Japanese experiences, advises Robin Powell.

Al-Ru Farm

Ruth Irving’s garden at Al-Ru Farm in the Adelaide Hills is all romance and pretty pictures. Everywhere you look is a blossom-draped arbour, a flower-edged pathway or a swagged rose consorting with a frilly bearded iris in matching tones of antique lingerie. 

Amazon Lily, Victoria amazonica

A virtual tour to the places where the Amazon lily blooms reveals some incredible stories. 

Amsterdam

Amsterdam’s botanical garden was a 17th century source of healing herbs and fascinating new food flavours. Robin Powell takes the long way there.

Arylies

Over a lifetime Bev McConnell has created one of the world’s great gardens – and it’s just outside Auckland.

Australia's Best Rose Gardens

Need to know where to find the best rose gardens in Australia? We've done the hard yards for you, and here they are.

Barcelona

Rooms without corners, ceilings slung with rose garlands, legends played out on windowsills – more than a century later Barcelona’s modernist architects are still a thrill, says Robin Powell.

Bellavista

Holly Kerr Forsyth celebrates the landscape and people of country Australia in her new book ‘Country Gardens, Country Hospitality’. In this extract she introduces us to the garden of Anna and Don Carrazza, local food legends on the Murray.

Bonsai Art Museum

In April 2010, Ross Garden Tours was the first overseas tour group to visit the elegant new Bonsai Art Museum in the unique Omiya Bonsai district of Japan. Tour leader Carolyn Dwyer reports.

Boongala

An inspiring native garden rings bells for Linda Ross and to the sound of birdsong she changes her tune about the best plants to create pretty gardens.

Bronte House

Bronte House does not open to the public often. So when the opportunity arises gardeners line up to catch a glimpse of this Sydney treasure. Catch Sandra Ross there at the Spring Open Day, September 18 2016. Carla Petit has been looking after the garden for four years, continuing a tradition of highly skilled gardeners who have cared for this histric house and garden. Here she tell us what's happening.

Brussels

Every two years Brussels lays out a dazzling tapestry of flowers in the Grand Place. Seeing it is just one of our list of top things to do in Brussels.

Buenos Aires

Graham and Sandra were thrilled by the vibrancy and colour of Buenos Aires, where they have been researching a new tour itinerary. Graham shares some of their discoveries.

Chelsea 2015

After her first trip to the Chelsea Flower Show Robin Powell gave us her impressions. It was a show that reminded us of the beauty of nature barely gardened, and of gardens tended intensively.

Chelsea magic

Chelsea is a magical garden world as full of dreams and emotion as it of of sheer hard work and skill. We took three groups on Opening Day this year and asked the tour leaders to tell us what moved them most.

Chelsea: Graham Ross' Survival Tips

Tips to survive a day at Chelsea.

Chinoiserie

Most of us choose to garden where we live; Dominic Wong chose to live where he wanted to garden.

Cloudehill

Jeremy Francis tells the story of his magnificent garden in ‘Cloudehill: A year in the garden’. In this extract he describes how a garden inspired by the golden days of Edwardian Arts and Crafts Design began to take shape in the rich moist soils of the Dandenong Ranges.

Country life

A romantically pretty country garden, on the edge of the city. That’s the dream of the owners of The Old Vicarage in London’s Petersham. Find out how they made it a reality in this excerpt from Great Gardens of London.

Cruden Farm

Sandra Ross fulfilled a long-held dream when she and a group of our travellers were given a private tour of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch’s serenely beautiful garden.

Drummond

Drummond Castle’s formal gardens, based on the flag of Scotland and the family’s own standard, are justly famous and surprisingly fun.

Garden festival planner: Chaumont-sur-Loire Garden Festival

The Loire Valley is renowned as ‘France’s Garden’, and in summer it hosts an international design festival that imagines the future of gardening.

Garden festival planner: Chelsea Flower show

Chelsea is the prize bloom of the world's garden shows, and the reputation is well-deserved. Here Robin Powell shares her observations on what has been another breath-taking Chelsea Flower Show.

Garden Festival Planner: Floriade

In spring the national capital is all about Floriade. Here’s how to add more gardens to its tulip beds and party atmosphere.

Garden festival planner: Japan’s floral festivals

Once the cherry blossoms fall, Japan bursts into colour with azaleas, peonies and wisteria creating a crescendo of colour unknown to most international travellers - and not to be missed!

Garden festival planner: Melbourne

MIFGS blooms in Melbourne in March. Here’s how to turn a day at the show into a real garden festival

Garden Festival Planner: Nambour

Garden lovers flock to Nambour in winter for their fill of new plants, gadgets and ideas. Here’s how to turn a day at the show into a real garden festival.

Garden festival planner: Nelmac Garden Marlborough

The gates open on incredible private gardens in this New Zealand festival, which also offers workshops - Great Dixter’s Fergus Garrett is the keynote speaker this year - and a garden party at Wither Hills Winery.

Garden Ideas from Appletern Garden Festival, Holland

Visiting Appletern is like having your favourite garden magazine come to life. Around every corner of this vast garden showcase in Holland is a new page offering great ideas for your own garden: design, plants, planting combinations, paving options, sculpture, furniture and more.

Garden Road Trip South Coast

With verdant green dairy country on one side and pristine beaches on the other, the south coast of NSW is gorgeous country. Plan now to visit in spring, when open gardens add to the sights.

Garden Road Trip: Adelaide

Adelaide’s roses are a treat in both spring and in autumn, and there is plenty more to discover in a city that loves its gardens.

Garden Road Trip: Mount Wilson

The village of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney is famous for its cool climate gardens, which in spring are a picture! Our advice? Make a day of it!

Garden Road Trip: Olinda

Stands of giant mountain ash and lush tree ferns adorn even the roadsides around Olinda, in the Dandenong Ranges, just outside Melbourne. Landscape designer and local, Philip Johnson shared some favourite horticultural haunts.

Garden Road Trip: Rydal

Hosts of golden daffodils dance in the wind when the tiny village of Rydal, just east of Lithgow, celebrates the Daffodils at Rydal festival. Robin Powell takes you there.

Garden Road Trip: Singapore

The Singapore stopover might once have been about shopping, but now it’s about gardens. Add these destinations to your itinerary.

Goldfields

Great Ideas

Want some great garden ideas. Grab some tips and trends from the professionals who showed gardens in this year’s Hidden Design Festival.

Great ideas from Country Victoria

We found plenty of inspiration on our Ross Garden Tour of country Victoria last spring. Here are a few of our favourite ideas – all worth including in your own garden.

Highfields

In November 2014 David Kennedy and Andrew Dunshea, creators of Katoomba’s wonderful Clover Hill, embarked on a new garden over the mountain in Little Hartley. In this extract from Claire Takacs’ new book, ‘Australian Dreamscapes’, David tells what happened next

Hummelo

Claire Takacs is one of the world’s leading garden photographers. Piet Oudolf is the world's most famous garden designer. Here’s what happened when Claire visited Piet’s garden, Hummelo.

Iguazu Falls

Iguazu is more than just a waterfall, says an exhilarated Robin Powell

In my garden: Frog Hollow

Linda’s garden at Catherine Hill Bay had a few false starts as killer black frosts and maddening weeds wreaked their worst, but it now has a welcoming sense of place.

In My Garden: Wendy Whiteley

Wendy Whiteley’s harbourside garden is Sydney’s secret public park. Here Wendy tells us about the garden in Autumn.

In our garden: Wildwood

A cool-climate garden of five acres gives Sue and Wayne Tapping room to grow the beauties they love. Here they share what’s keeping them busy this spring

In the garden: Red Cow Farm

In 1990, Ali Mentesh stood in the bald paddocks of Red Cow Farm and dreamed of a canopy of trees, a woodland-edged lake, and garden rooms fragrant with roses. In making the dream reality Ali turned himself into a garden designer sought-after for his imagination, and his hands-on experience of plants and how best to grow them.

In the garden: Retford Park

Rick Shepherd, head gardener at Bowral’s grand Retford Park, dishes the dirt on what goes on in the garden in spring.