Border Lines Garden Tours
Border Lines
Early January can only mean one thing to avid garden visitors – the arrival on their doorstep of the latest Border Lines brochure. www.border-lines.co.uk now in its twenty-eighth year specialises in exclusive garden tours both in Britain and overseas. Owned and run by James Bolton since 2008, Border Lines offers a thrilling medley of thirteen day visits each to three pre-selected gardens all over the country not normally open to the public. Tip top lunches and generous teas are also part of the experience as well as a selection of plants for sale from a nearby specialist nursery.
James Bolton at Vergelegen, South Africa.
Like a well-designed glossy magazine, Border Lines skilfully plans the pace of the tours ensuring that each garden visited is very different in style. James takes enormous trouble to discover new gardens each year scouring the countryside. His infectious enthusiasm for his subject is evident in his descriptions of the gardens in the brochure. ‘Our scope is wider than any other garden tour operator, and we travel further afield’. For instance this year there are two thrilling sounding days in North Wales as well as several days in counties within striking distance of London.
Plas Brondanw, the home of the architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis.
It is all so easy: one just has to send a cheque, organise transport and a hotel room if staying in a far flung shire and off you go. James’s endless charm, humour and tact, not to mention his esteemed plantsmanship make him a pleasure to be with. Travel between the gardens is by coach.
Border Lines never advertises in glossy garden publications, relying solely on word of mouth. Over the years it has built up a devoted clientele who eagerly sign up time and time again year after year. Places go rapidly so I would advise booking ASAP to avoid disappointment. A garden designer, lecturer and garden historian, James exerts exacting standards on ‘the very best private gardens to be visited. ‘He knows how to satisfy critical English garden visitors’ says Robin Lane Fox, the Financial Times’s renowned garden writer. Such is the horticultural reputation of Border Line devotees that many gardens will only open up exclusively for them.
Thirteen years ago James started Border Lines Abroad organising trips to Sicily, Normandy and Lugarno and Lake Como. Highly successful, these tours are often fully booked months in advance. Last year I was lucky enough to join his first trip to South Africa in November 2014, visiting some nineteen, nearly all private, gardens in eight days in the Western Cape. I echo James’s words: ‘I had not expected to find gardens of such diversity, quality and charm’. Here is a selection of highlights of the trip:
The dazzling white border at Stellenberg, a Cape Dutch homestead. Like many S.African gardens it is clearly inspired by English gardens. Penstemon ‘Husker’s Red’, which tends to look v. disappointing in the U.K here looks stunning combined with white foxgloves, lilies, jasmine, roses and a host of other plants.
Handsome gate piers at Stellenberg gardened by Sandy Ovenstone since 1973.
I quickly lost count of the number of rose gardens we saw devoted to ‘Iceberg’. This example again at Stellenberg was designed by Franchesca Watson (www.franchescawatson.co.za) hedged with dune crowberry (Searsia crenata).
Mexican Blood Trumpet – Distictis buccinatoria in the garden at ‘Old Nectar’ the home of the legendary Una van der Spuy (1912-2012), the South African equivalent of Rosemary Verey. Garden designer & author of numerous books.
Old Nectar, home to Una van der Spry for more than half a century.
Looking out to Table Mountain across Indigenous flora.
A miniature version of New York’s High Line. Look out for dymondia margaretae, a plant endemic to the Cape Province.
Steps carpeted in a profusion of Erigeron alpinus at the wonderful Rustenberg wine estate.
A splendid display of deutzias at the Rustenberg wine estate.
Garden at the Rustenberg wine estate. Ligustrum Ebota (privet to you and me) is stunning if clipped in this imaginative way.
A jolly medley of South African blooms.
Agapanthus are everywhere in South Africa but surprisingly one never tires of marvelling at their handsome flowers.
A magnificent display of hydrangea.quercifolia.
Who could resist a sundowner on this bench?
A provincial style house dramatically set on the slopes of Groot Drakenstein. The planting is an imaginative mix of local plants typical of mountain fynbos such as cone bushes (Leucadendron), pincushions (Leucospermum), Cape forget-me-not (Plumbago auriculata), wild iris (Dietes) and meticulously clipped bushes such as the confetti bush (Coleonema album).
A bowl of baboon bones remind one that this garden is in South Africa not Provence.
A haven for succulents.
The clipped bushes heighten the contrast between the rugged landscape and the tamed garden.
