LIST: HORTICULTURAL HOLIDAY OPERATORS

Archers Direct	0870 460 3894	Archers offer garden tours to Provence & the French Riviera, Venito & Tuscany, and the southern states of the USA.
Barfield Travel	01636 705612	Barfield Travel & Tours is a division of Agricultural Travel Bureau Ltd which specialises in educational tours to farms. Their spin-off is small group garden tours in the UK and overseas, led by expert guides.
Boxwood Tours	01292 263331	Holidays for garden lovers offering a chance to visit some of the most exclusive and beautiful gardens of Europe and meet with garden owners and head gardeners wherever possible.
Brightwater Holidays	01334 657155	Horticultural tours to gardens all over the UK, Europe and worldwide as far afield as South America and the Far East. They also offer a range of garden cruises particularly to Scottish & UK islands.
Brookland Travel	01305 259467	Tailor-made garden tours and a programme of tours in association with Hillier garden centres to gardens in Cornwall, the Cotswolds, Holland and France.
Compass Holidays	01242 250642	Compass operate a number of gardens tours in the UK.
Cornish Garden Tours	01208 873629	Tours of Cornish country houses & gardens
Enterprise Travel	01756 710500	Specialist gardens tour operator, offering short breaks & holidays in the UK.
Flora Garden Tours	01366 328 946	Gardens tours in the UK for small groups (max 12).
Garden Tours America	020 8802 2796	Tours to the gardens of Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina.
Garden Visiting	020 3239 9557	Small family-run specialist operator running 3 to 4-day tours of gardens and historic sites in Britain.
Heritage Touring	01794 342249	Heritage Touring have been operating garden tours and special interest holidays in the UK and Europe for 20 years. Their programme features short break tours with visits to a wide range of private gardens, well-know public gardens, and some exclusive visits to historic houses and their gardens.
Kirker Holidays	0870 112 3333	The short breaks specialist launched its first Cultural Tours brochure in Sept 05 for groups of around 15-22 people escorted by an expert lecturer. The focus is on art & culture but there are some Gardens & Botany tours in the programme of 70 departures which started Feb 06.
Leger	0800 018 9898	Leger has a small programme of flowers and gardens tours in Europe and the UK.
Saga	0800 096 0084	Saga (holidays for over 50s) have a gardens programme, with its own dedicated brochure, that runs from March through to October visiting special gardens worldwide in the company of horticultural experts.
Sisley Garden Tours	01423 531222	Tours to gardens in the UK and Europe.
Tarka Garden Tours	01271 375002	Small group weekend and short breaks to public and private gardens along the coast of Devon, Somerset & Cornwall.
Trossachs Garden Tours	n/a	Short break tours to private gardens in Scotland.
Weavers & Clark	01394 411431	Specialist garden tour operators to gardens worldwide.

Notes

• Great British Gardens is not so much a tour operator as a guide to gardens in the UK and where to stay nearby.
• Orchid Safari Holidays operate women-only orchid spotting holidays on Crete.
• Not many realise it but the Cambridge University Botanic Garden has been open to the public since 1846 (thanks to Prof. John Stevens Henslow, who is best remembered for inspiring his pupil Charles Darwin with a love of natural history). The Garden curates, develops and displays the plant collections of the University of Cambridge, for research purposes and for everyone to enjoy. Word is finally getting out! Last year 125,000 visitors turned up to see the eight thousand different plant species in 40 acres of landscapes.
• Greek holiday specialists Freelance Holidays (01789 297705) are operating expert-led botany tours to southern Crete on two dates in April 09.