The northern third of the island of Ireland has gardens as varied and well planted as any further south, so this five-day tour, while centred in Northern Ireland, strays happily across the border to the shores of the Atlantic to visit two enchanting gardens in County Donegal. We visit a woodland garden filled with exotics from the Southern Hemisphere, a small garden filled with the most desirable plants, a large and spectacular garden on the shores of a sea lough, historic garden, Mount Stewart and a rarely open estate in County Tyrone.

The gardens reflect the gentle landscape of the north, which, though punctuated by low mountains, is soft, fertile and overwhelmingly green. Like their counterparts further south, the gardens here are invariably filled with interesting plants and gardened with huge enthusiasm, knowledge and great generosity.