Guided tour by John Anderson around Savill Gardens

John will meet us at the entrance to the gardens at 11am. The costs for October 2024 was £14.50 each on the day but there is a deduction if you book online in advance. We will all be responsible for paying our own entrance fee before we meet up with John. If you pay in advance online you should get your deduction but you can pay on the day if you wish. John will show us all the best bits of the autumn gardens before leaving us to our own devices for lunch. It is recommended that we book in advance if we want to eat in The Savill Garden Kitchen. The café doesn’t need booking but it could be very busy or we can take our own. We will then be free to explore as much as we want to until closing time and there is a lot to explore.

The Savill Garden is a 35-acre haven of gardens, woodland and seasonal displays.  Commissioned by George V and created by Eric Savill in 1932. Autumn in the gardens is such a great time to see wonderful displays of naturally changing colour, some of the best are the Acers, Liquidambers, Caryas and of course the brilliantly colouring Nyssas. There is also a National Collection of Mahonias, some of which should be flowering at the time of our visit.

Most of us know John from his time at Exbury Gardens and are fully aware that he is one of the most knowledgeable plantsmen of our times. This has been recognised by the RHS by awarding him a VMM, these are awarded to ‘Persons of any nationality who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement and improvement of the science and practice of horticulture’. John has been on the RHS Woody plant committee since 2007 and has held his position at Savill since 2016. John trained at Kew before starting his career at Mount Usher in Ireland. He then moved to Inverewe Garden in Scotland as head gardener before taking up his post at Exbury. We are very lucky that John has agreed to show us around himself, I am very much looking forward to this visit and hoping there isn’t another royal wedding to take him away from us!