garden nerding our way through England

Take 2 garden obsessed people, 2 weeks off work, a car, a shuttle train, a LONG list of ‘to visit’ gardens and alllll the walnut coffee cake (move over scones - yes I said that). Et voila: a blogpost absolutely STUFFED (nothing new here, lol) with photos from our England garden tour holiday!

It’s a mix of phone photos and some film photos, accompanied by tips and info on our favourite places. Grab yourself a cuppa, a piece of cake (or okay - that scone).. or heck, some toast with baked beans (yum), get ready to scroll and ENJOY!

We stayed at Sissinghurst Castle Farmhouse B&B for the first 2 nights. Big mistake. Because after this HEAVENLY stay, the rest of the trip could only disappoint. Haha, we loved it there!! So much. The only sound was the birds singing. Literally. It was so peaceful and so beautiful. Both the breakfast & the afternoon tea every day were lovely as well. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth it.

I have the weird habit of waking up really early whenever I’m on holiday. But this works for me because it means I get to experience sunrises. This one, over Sissinghurst estate was one for the books. I dragged Stefan outside, where we were greeted by squirrels, birds and sheep. We were the only ones walking the estate. The actual garden didn’t open until 11, but the grounds surrounding it are so nice as well.

The actual Sissinghurst Castle gardens were a treat. Surprisingly, I loved the dry garden. There’s something about the vibe in gardens like that that really appeals to me. But the cottage garden with its hot borders was a feast as well. And the froth in the white garden… yummm. Okay, maybe I liked it all. Who knows?

It was HOT while we were there, so we really appreciated all the different corners, shady sitting areas and forest paths. You can really spend a long day here. MUST SEE.

Don’t worry sweet people of Sissinghurst, I was only stroking the sweet peas, not picking them. (internal voice: MUST. BE. STRONG. MUST. NOT. PICK. FLOWERS.)

Bonus about staying in the Farmhouse next door? I was literally 100 meters to the entrance of the garden. And the road was lined with the sweetest, juiciest blackberries I’ve seen or tasted. Needless to say Stefan walked this bit in 1 minute while it took me 10.

Since there was a mad heatwave (hi climate crisis), we drove to Camber beach in the afternoon. Where we had to do a bit of a PARKOUR to get to the water - over stones, shells, quicksand like areas, warm water, cold water, dry sand ridges.. it was a full sensory experiences for our feet. But eventually we reached the very cold sea. And you better believe we swam in it! I will never pass on an ocean swim (I mean, within semi reasonable temperatures, I’m no Wim Hof lol).

We finished our day with Guinness and pizza at the Milk House. For the second day in a row, because why change a winning team?

Ooh Scotney Castle. You made me wanna grow my hair out (I can’t though, it just won’t haha) and let some guy climb up it. Look at that perfect Rapunzel tower!

We also loved the quarry garden and the view that you can see in the very first photo in this blogpost. And the fact the castle was filled with cat photos and paintings. Their mascot was a Nalu like cat. Perfection!

And again a hot day so we were happy to have lunch in the shade of a big tree on their terrace. Give me alllll the beans & baked potatoes for lunch people!

My face when I entered the walled garden at Scotney Castle. Scroll down to see what I saw..

I mean.. WHAT?!

WHAT??!!

*insert the sweet scent of roses here

I’m dead. Bury me in this garden. Okay, thanks!

This was in our second spot - this barn we found on airbnb. Not as quiet as Sissinghurst (nothing is), but a lovely place to spend a longer time. And with a stunning view over the neighbours garden & fields. We saw rabbits, squirrels, birds - even an owl! We had our breakfast on the steps in front of the door every day, at least before the rain arrived :)

Next on the program was Borde Hill. We loved the greenhouses and jungle garden. I can’t really pinpoint Borde Hill because is was mad. A good mad though. Like, who has a formal Italian garden right next to a small rainforest, around the corner from a more traditional flower border? It was like an expedition, you could literally discover new gardens at every turn.

They had a plant fair the day we came - a lucky coincidence (or was it? ;)). It was pouring around lunchtime, but there was a tent where the head gardener was giving a lecture on some of their special plants so we dove in there and learned things while we ate our sandwiches.

Something we didn’t know was that a lot of gardens have a little secondhand bookshop. We explored them all. And at Borde Hill I found the most amazing book - my favourite fairytale author and full page flower paintings (painted in his time) in one. Universe, I love you.

Speaking of fun souvenirs. We decided - on day 2, in the Sissinghurst plant shop - to bring a plant from every garden we visited. Since they all had plant shops and we were driving with our own (spacious) car anyway. So we brought home a little souvenir garden. Obviously the ‘one plant per garden’ rule went out the window very quickly. Especially when we got to Great Dixter. I think we bought 7 there :D

I looked it up. According to my phone I took over 21.000 steps at Wakehurst. It was HUGE. And with so much height difference, we got quite the workout.

We drove here after Borde Hill, since it was in the same area. I don’t know what we expected from the sister garden of Kew, but we fell hard. In love.

This scene lives in my memory rent free. Anyone that has read Braiding Sweetgrass will recognize this right away. Asters & goldenrod.

The amazing people at Wakehurst created this native prairie garden quite recently so it’s still developing but it’s already amazing. I didn’t want to leave. If you ask me about my favourite UK garden, this area is it. I just wished Turtle Island (North America’s native name) still looked like this. Just imagine the wildlife!

Stefan is sort of obsessed with shadow plants and water gardens. He loves ferns, ponds, anything green basically. We were too late for these irises so can only imagine how spectacular it must look in a different season!

This is what love looks like.

Every large tree will get at least a gentle touch from me but at best, a sincere hug. I swear you can just feel the life in these giants. In awe of their beauty. The Natural world is everything (literally!).

More love :)

We WILL come back to Wakehurst, for more than 1 reason:
1. we want to see the Himalayan Glade with all the rododendrons in full bloom (since Asia isn’t around the corner and this sort of is)
2. we obviously want to see the Iris Dell in flowers as well!
3. I want to secretly move into the prairie garden and never leave (ssst, it’s a secret)

Some scenes from our day in Rye. We had a few rainy days, so we took it a bit slower. We might also have been absolutely knackered from Wakehurst and the days before.

The amazing looking lunch was at the Fig in Rye. I found the place on instagram, my go to search tool for veggie/vegan eating spots. They did NOT disappoint. The food & drinks looked amazing and tasted even better. 10/10 recommend.

The rest of Rye is filled with cute (vintage) shops and streets, so have a stroll around - leave your heels at home though. Unless you’re not attached to functioning ankles #cobblestones

Best rainy day activity in the UK: visiting salvage yards! We went to a place called Authentic Reclamation in Stonegate (this is where Stefan got the brick things - he’s gonna build a bug hotel with them), Symonds Salvage in Ashford (HUGE place - but didn’t have what we were looking for) and finally we stopped at this tiny place called Old Ebony School Antiques. It was the BEST. The photos above are pics of that shop.

The owner, John, helped us dig out a galvanised trough and sold us that beautiful green watering can you can see above. And he casually invited us to come and stay at his farm next time we are in the area. “So you can see where I grow my veggies”. Insert watery eyes here. Sweetest guy, amazing products and so helpful. Definitely stop by and send him my love!

Another day, another garden. We had 3 in 1 this day. I mean, we didn’t buy a National Trust touring pass for nothing lol!

First stop: Bateman’s aka Rupert Kiplings house. It was pretty special to stand in his old office. Stefan loved it here. The garden was less spectacular (compared to others we’ve seen), it’s more about the house here. But what a house. I tortured my film camera with this photo but it was worth it. Even if it’s really dark. The vibes!

We couldn’t skip Perch Hill since we were so close. We booked a slot to visit Sarah Ravens garden and have lunch as well, which was lovely. We also got some cake after that nice fresh lunch because everything looked SO good. We basically got walnut coffee cake everywhere, but with at least 15.000 steps per day we needed the energy lol.

It was amazing seeing all the dahlias and personally - to see where my flower friend Marieke Nolsen gained inspiration for her own beautiful garden. I loved the ‘Dutch yard’ and the ‘Oast garden’ (pictured below). Someone said: “Perch Hill is a gardener’s garden”. We couldn’t agree more!

I had to drag Stefan here since he wasn’t too keen on visiting Monk’s House - aka the house of Virginia Woolf. It’s weird because I never actually read her books (sorry, will start soon), but somehow I felt like I had to visit this place. And when the lovely ladies at Bateman’s recommended it too, it was a done deal.

And I’m SO glad we went. I LOVED her house. The colours, the patterns, the furniture, the mix&match style, the natural keepsakes, her sense of style.. ooffff. So good. I felt right at home. I’m sure I will love her books too ;)

After the 3 gardens we went to Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters. Because why rest when you can walk up a massive white cliff? It was stunning though! Insane to think this was once attached to the white cliffs you see in France. Somehow I never made that connection lol.

We had the most incredible sunset.. from the car because we left a little bit too soon haha!

Great Dixter was just a 7 minute drive from our home for the week. And yet we waited until our last day there to visit it. Saving the best for last!

It definitely lived up to its reputation. It was Stefans favourite place I think. The borders are jam packed with plants, the tropical garden took us back to Costa Rica and the sunken garden was like a meditation. So peaceful, but not boring at all. We thought the whole garden was surprisingly calm, especially for such a popular place. And the interior, wow! If I can’t move into the prairie garden or Monks House, I will settle for Great Dixter.

Are you still reading? You must really love gardens too haha!

We moved to a bnb near Kew Gardens. On Saturday we visited the flower festival at Strawberry Hill House (which was amazing, but I’m not gonna include photos in this blogpost because it’s already way too long). Sunday was the day we would FINALLY see Kew in person. Yay!

Not so yay, because I got food poisoning after we had breakfast somewhere. Not sure what is was because avocado toast is usually pretty harmless. Well, tmi, but I spend the first 2 hours at Kew exploring the restrooms. Fun!

After my body got rid of all the toxins, it was great though. Lotsssss of walking. We were a bit disappointed the Marianne North Gallery wasn’t open. And one of the greenhouses was closed because they were setting up the Queer Nature exhibition at the time.

Everything else was beautiful though. The greenhouses especially. And again: the rock garden!

Onwards to London!

The last time I was in London I was a teenager on a school trip. I remember visiting Harrods, listening to passionate people on soapboxes in the park and simply loving the city! Stefan has never been and is not a city person (neither am I though) so he was a bit hesitant. Usually we end up in a botanical garden or green space. He was very pleasantly surprised with all the green spaces in London and ended up loving this city as much as I do :)

It also helped our hotel was just above Hyde Park, bordering Notting Hill. You could basically smell the wealth in these areas lol.

We had to visit the Garden Museum! It was nice, a bit smaller than we thought though. I think it would be great to visit this place on a day there’s an activity/workshop/something special. We were there in between exhibitions. We also hope they will add more vegetarian/vegan options to their lunch menu so I’m not stuck with apple pie ;)

Me every day that we were there (3 days): ”On the roof tops of London…”

If you know you know. Otherwise click this link ;)

Also both of us the entire time: “LONDON BABY!” (shout out to Elise)

It’s not a proper nature nerd holiday without a visit to the Museum of National History. Sigh, what a treat. I remember visiting this place as a kid with my parents and it feeling so big. I thought it was because I was still little, but the building still felt HUGE even if I’m 187cm tall now.

Nothing flower or nature related here. But we went to an Ottolenghi deli 3 times. Fun fact: my sister, brother-in-law and dad are all Ottolenghi obsessed. The first time we just stumbled upon the store and bought cakes (and a present for the fans at home). Foolishly, we ate the delicious cakes in our hotel bed - before we went out to dinner. Big mistake. Huge.

But also.. kinda worth it.

The second time we grabbed that boxful and had a picnic in the park before we went to Frozen the musical (no shame because it was actual MAGIC). And finally, we drove by the deli to pick up lunch for our drive home - we ended up eating it for dinner but yummm.. so good.

I mean, it was all vegetarian food, so maybe a little nature related after all!

Some snapshots to finish off the longest blogpost of my life (I think). And some London food recommendations because even though it was so easy to eat vegetarian in the UK, tips are always nice :)

We had dinner at Farmacy - a plant based restaurant in Notting Hill. Eughhhh, again: so good. Even if we stuffed our faces with cakes beforehand. And we foolishly ordered a caramel fudge brownie - everything but the kitchen sink - sorbet for desert. To share. But still.. Complete and utter food coma.

We also had dinner at Bubula in Soho. Excuse my language but holy crap, that was delicious! The baba ganoush was to DIE for. We got a seat downstairs because the restaurant was packed. But it worked out great for us, since we both get sensory overload pretty quickly and upstairs was loud af. So ask for a seat downstairs if you are like that too. Make sure to book in advance!

On day one we grabbed some lunch to go (and eat in Hyde park with dozens of geese stalking us lol) from Gail’s. There are multiple shops throughout the city. Their pastries are as delicious as they look.

I’m getting hungry just talking about these things lol.

I forgot to mention we had amazing Italian food the first night in Kew are - at Q Verde. The people were so nice and só Italian, it was the best. And I had the best limoncello of my life there (but that opinion might be based on the wine and espresso martini I had before that ;)).

The day after we had a semi-traditional Sunday roast after Kew, at the Botanist. Semi-traditional because we had a vegan nut roast. Super yummy. But what is it with those Yorkshire puddings? They were absolutely massive. Larger than my hand. We had to google what to do with them. I know, laugh all you want. It was ridiculous! Our final (non-food poisoning) breakfast/coffee before we went to London was at Cafe Torelli. The almond croissants are yummmm. The coffee too! And I don’t even like coffee that much.

YOU MADE IT!!

I can’t believe how long this post got haha! But I should have known, oversharer that I am.

I hope this list will help you plan your ideal garden tour holiday in Kent, East Sussex, a little bit of West Sussex and London. There are so many amazing places, both in and out the city, it’s impossible to see them all in one go.

So we will definitely be back! Comment your favourite places below, what gardens should we visit next time we’re in the UK?

x Anne