ROSS GARDEN TOURS INSIDE NEW SOUTH WALES 30 SEPTEMBER - 10 OCTOBER 2020 ITINERARY Our Inside New South Wales tour includes all of NSW’s spring flower festivals; Tulip Time in the Southern Highlands, Floriade in Canberra, Cowra Cherry Blossom and Leura Garden Festival. It will be a celebration of spring and we’ll do it in style with time to enjoy the fine food and wines of each region. DAY 1 Wed 30 Sep Rick will take us through the gardens Check into The Sebel, our home for the Home to Bowral followed by a special private tour inside next three nights and enjoy some free Meet your Tour Leader at Sydney the historic house. time in Canberra. Central Coach Terminal. Accommodation: The Gibraltar Hotel, Bowral Accommodation: The Sebel, Canberra Our first garden is a country gem, DAY 3 Fri 2 Oct DAY 5 Sun 4 Oct hidden in a beautiful valley just beyond Red Cow Farm Floriade Camden. Mickey Robertson will host First stop this morning is Red Cow Walking shoes today as we head to our visit of her charming garden Farm in Sutton Forest. This impossibly Lake Burley Griffin and Commonwealth surrounding historic Glenmore House. beautiful garden is the result of its Park to Floriade. This celebration of Tour Mickey’s kitchen garden, perennial tender loving care by consummate spring is counted in flowers: tulips, borders, roses and the beautiful farm plantsman, Ali Mentesh. Ali will show daffodils, hyacinths, violas, pansies, buildings all lovingly restored. Lunch is us through the garden and explain wallflowers, all colour and fragrance. in the Loggia - you won’t want to leave! the structure of garden rooms that The four-hectare site is filled with over Next is the Australian Botanic Garden make the design work so brilliantly. a million blooms in a variety of themed Mount Annan. It’s the largest botanical You’ll be enchanted and surprised garden beds designed to fit within garden in Australia and is spectacular by the Walled Garden, a sanctuary an overarching theme each year. The in spring when paper daisies put on where solitude invites reflection, National Arboretum is next, a vision a breathtaking display! We finish our the exuberant cottage garden and for the future. It’s home to 94 forests first day in the beautiful Southern the Monastery Garden. Discover of rare, endangered and symbolic Highlands and check into the Gibraltar a stunning collection of unusual trees from Australia and around the Hotel in Bowral, our home for 3 nights. perennials, old fashioned roses and world. More than 48,000 trees grow Time to relax and enjoy this serene clematis in the Abbess Garden. Wander on this 250 hectare (618 acres) site, location before our Welcome Dinner through the beech walk, around the with species from over 100 countries tonight in the hotel restaurant. lake, through the bog garden, into represented. Located at the western Accommodation: The Gibraltar Hotel, Bowral the orchard and kitchen garden. end of Lake Burley Griffin, just 6km DAY 2 Thu 1 Oct Afternoon visit to Harper’s Mansion, from the centre of Canberra. This still Bowral built by James and Mary Harper soon new arboretum has panoramic views A treat this morning at The Kaya in after 1834, when they bought land in over Canberra, Lake Burley Griffin and Wildes Meadow, where horticultural Berrima township. James Harper was beyond. Our guide will board our coach know-how and exceptional garden the only son of William Harper and for a guided tour. This afternoon is a design come together. Wander through Margaret Morgan, both convicts. Local real treat - High Tea at the Hyatt Hotel! the low water gravel garden, parterre rosarian and consultant, Heather Cant Be surrounded by luxury in the elegant and meadow garden. It’s stunning, recommended the planting of historic Tea Lounge where tables are laden with nurtured by a born plantsman, Les old garden roses. There is now an petit fours, scones, macaroons, filo Musgrave who will amaze you with his expanding collection of heritage roses parcels, sandwiches and tiny glasses of outstanding low maintenance plant and camellias, fruit and vegetable white and dark chocolate pannacotta - selection and combinations. Elaine is a garden, hazelnut and woodland Walks. it is an afternoon of sheer heaven! renown botanical artist who will show Accommodation: The Gibraltar Hotel, Bowral Accommodation: The Sebel, Canberra us her studio of incredibly beautiful DAY 4 Sat 3 Oct DAY 6 Mon 5 Oct botanical art. Morning tea will be Bowral to Canberra Australian National Botanic Garden served in the garden. Australia’s answer to Keukenhof is our Start today at Old Parliament House. It’s Tulip Time in the Southern destination this morning as we head The Gardens were laid out in the Highlands, so we’ll tiptoe through into Canberra. With spring blossom emerging capital of Canberra in the Corbett Gardens. A grand old garden overhead and tulips carpeting below, late 1920s and early 1930s, a welcome this afternoon, Retford Park was Tulip Top Garden is a celebration of refuge for parliamentarians, and a established in 1887 in the English spring, opening for just a month each pleasant escape from daily debates Landscape Style by Samuel Hordern. year. We’ll drive into Canberra and visit and party meetings. Maintained for the It was handed to the National Trust by an exceptional Aussie garden in Red private use of members and senators, the late James Fairfax. Today the garden Hill where you will be inspired by their the Gardens contributed to their in the caring hands of Rick Shepherd. use of natives species in the garden. enjoyment and general well-being over many decades. The original quadrant miniature. Ken Nakajima, the master Colleen’s garden. Afternoon tea on her layout was established by Robert of the visual art of Japanese landscape back verandah is a special treat! Broinowski, secretary of the Joint design, followed the principle aspects Accom: Byng St Hotel, Orange House and Usher of the Black Rod. of Japanese landscape design DAY 9 Thu 8 Oct He sought and obtained permission meticulously and as a result, the Cowra Mayfield Gardens to start a campaign in 1931 asking Japanese Garden is now a miniature Australians to buy roses for the ‘Rex replica of the landscape of Japan. We are heading to Katoomba today with a lunch stop in Oberon to visit Hazlewood’ garden for one shilling and The main features of the design Mayfield Garden that nestles in a quiet fourpence each. The gardens continued incorporate the mountains of Japan, valley in the Central Tablelands of for nearly five decades until the the waterfalls from the mountains NSW. This large cool climate garden opening of the new Parliament House that flow into the mountain lakes started modestly within a 5000-acre in 1988. After that, these gardens were and from there the water flows into working farm. It’s now huge with a largely forgotten. In the late 1990s, the rivers then the ocean, the hills new 6-acre water garden at its heart the National Capital Authority began from the mountains to the ocean are and attracts visitors from around the a major project to return the gardens represented by trimmed hedges and globe. Leon, the head gardener, takes to their former splendour, conserving the pine trees of Japan are represented us on a walking tour through both the the significant heritage value and throughout the perimeter of the private and public areas of this world- improving amenities. Next is the landscape. It has become a visual class garden. Morning tea & lunch are Australian National Botanic Gardens representation of Japanese landscape included at Mayfield. Later, we head to with the largest living collection of design. Before we leave Cowra we’ll the Blue Mountains and check into the native flora where we will have lunch visit the site of the former POW camp historic Carrington Hotel in Katoomba in their beautiful garden restaurant. and the cemetery. Travel into Orange for 2 nights. Tour Rouge is our afternoon visit. It’s and check into Byng Street Boutique a stunningly designed private garden Hotel for 2 nights. Dinner is included Accom: Carrington Hotel, Katoomba with such exquisite detail that you’ll tonight at the hotel. DAY 10 Fri 9 Oct feel like you’ve stepped into a French Accom: Byng St Hotel, Orange Leura Garden Festival provincial garden! DAY 8 Wed 7 Oct Leura gardens are cool-climate Accommodation: The Sebel, Canberra Millthorpe stunners, famous for their magnificent spring flower displays. Today we DAY 7 Tue 6 Oct Learn all about iris this morning at a explore a selection of private gardens Canberra to Orange speciality iris garden in Millthorpe. open especially the Leura Garden It’s an enchanting drive this morning Crabapples and cherries should be Festival. Free time in Leura to explore as we head for Cowra. Golden canola in full flower in this beautiful country this pretty mountain village with its should be in full flower, fields of it garden. Lunch is included today in stylish shops and lovely galleries. decorating the Lachlan Valley. Lunch the heritage town of Millthorpe that today in the Cowra Japanese Garden. has remained unchanged since the Accom: Carrington Hotel, Katoomba In 1977 world-renowned architect Ken 1900’s. The whole village is classified DAY 11 Sat 10 Oct Nakajima was commissioned to design by the National Trust. This afternoon Arrive home the garden, a copy of the first Japanese visit Colleen Southwell, The Garden Enjoy more Leura gardens this morning landscape garden (strolling garden) Curator. Underpinned by the “SLOW” including Everglades, constructed in built by the first Shogun Tokugawa in philosophy upon which the Slow Food the 1930s by Danish-born landscape the 16th century A.D.