Scottish and Northern Borders Group of The Hardy Plant Society
Garden Tour 2026
A five day tour of the gardens of eastern Yorkshire
Day 1 and 2
Acorn Bank - a National Trust property we visited on the journey down to Yorkshire, it is best known for its extensive and attractive herb garden and fruit orchards. A lovely calming feel to the garden, with some interesting planting.
Mansion Cottage - a beautiful, surprising garden, hidden behind a terraced house, packed with vibrant borders. The owners have planted to attract pollinators and there are several garden rooms, each with a different feel. The borders are extensive and full of a wide variety of herbaceous perennials and grasses.
Burton Agnes Hall - this offered an extensive walled garden packed with colour and fragrance, especially from the roses, with several seats to just sit and immerse yourself in the space and admire the variety and combination of plants. There was also a formal garden with pond, a woodland area and a maze.
Nursery Garden - a former commercial nursery, this garden is now an attractive and productive organic, private garden. There are over 100 fruit trees and a huge range of vegetables grown in the garden and greenhouse. These areas are interspersed with herbaceous borders and cut flower areas to attract wildlife.
Day 3
Jackson's Wold - a beautiful two-acre private garden, with stunning views over the Vale of Pickering, offering many different areas to enjoy. The walled garden is full of old roses, underplanted with unusual perennials and a lime walk leads to a wildflower meadow. The paths wend their way through woodland areas, interspersed with further shrub and perennial borders.
Scampston- designed by Piet Oudolf, Scampston is a contemporary garden over 4.5 acres, one of the first to use prairie style planting with its mix of grasses and perennials. The garden also uses topiary to great effect and there are many garden rooms within the walled garden, each with a different look and feel. Outside the walled garden, there are extensive herbaceous borders to enjoy.
Croft Meadow Garden - a fairly new garden, which its owners have transformed over the last couple of years, using every foot of space to great effect. Productive vegetable and fruit beds surround sunken seating areas in the sloping front garden, whilst the back garden has borders full of interesting perennials, with a newly built dry stone wall, low enough to enjoy the view of the wider landscape
Day 4 and 5
Skipwith Hall - the four acre walled garden of a Queen Anne house has been developed and changed over the last 100 years by generations of the same family. Since 2002, they have redesigned the kitchen garden to include many herbaceous borders, a maze and a gravel garden as well as rewilding several areas to improve the diversity of wildlife in the garden.
Burnby Hall - a large tranquil garden with lakes containing the National Collection of water lilies, restored Edwardian rock gardens on a grand scale, woodland walks and a vibrant walled garden.
Primrose Bank - a two acre garden adjacent to a nursery, this garden features a courtyard garden, a formal front garden and pond. There is a mix of traditional and modern styles, with some rare and unusual plants, shrubs and trees.
Newby Hall - famed for its extensive double herbaceous borders, which are deeply planted in blocks of colour and looking at their best in mid June, Newby also has much more to admire. The numerous cornus kousa in particular, were looking splendid in the woodland garden and there were interesting and unusual plants throughout the grounds, in the rose, water and rock gardens.
