May to Supercharge Newest Tourism Niche – Topiary Tourism

‘Topiary tourism’ will be spreading its way across the world in May 2024, as gardens from Peterborough to Le Touquet and Pennsylvania follow the lead of Cumbrian garden, Levens Hall and Gardens, in helping visitors better appreciate the art-form of topiary and enjoy experiences around it.

This type of tourism has been growing over the past four years, as gardens make topiary the centre of their thinking, thanks to the increase in attention on topiary created by Levens Hall and Gardens’ annual May 12 event, World Topiary Day.

First established during lockdown in 2020, to help celebrate Levens Hall being home to the world's oldest topiary garden, and taking part on the day on which the historic property’s notorious ‘Radish Feast’ was held in the 17th and 18th centuries, this annual event has lit up the topiary world and spread the love of this type of garden feature.  

This year, a ‘Topiary Message in a Bottle’ has been making its way from Levens Hall and Gardens, to Italy (Monumental Gardens of Valsanzibio at Padua), France (Les Jardins Suspendus de Marqueyssac and La Ballue) and several UK gardens, before finishing the relay back at the Cumbrian garden.

Levens Hall and Gardens will be enticing tourists into its Topiary Garden on Sunday May 12 but has this year also created the very first Topiary Tourism Guide.  This allows travellers to engage in topiary tourism at any other time of year too, by detailing the topiary offering at 33 other gardens, in the UK, Italy, France, Belgium and the USA.  

Gardens highlighted in the Topiary Tourism guide, which will be downloadable from https://www.levenshall.co.uk just before World Topiary Day, are all taking part in World Topiary Day 2024.  Many of these have planned special openings, activities and pricing, either on May 12 alone or over the entire weekend.  

At Levens Hall and Gardens, early-bird visitors who arrive between 10am and 11am on Sunday May 12 will pay just £3.30 to enter the gardens.  This helps mark 330 years of its Topiary Garden, founded in 1694 and the world’s oldest.  After 11am, admission will revert to the standard price of £11.50 adult, £4.50 child, or £29 for two adults and up to three children.

Special topiary tours (included in admission) will take place at 11am, 1pm and 3pm, led by head gardener, Chris Crowder, who has tended the garden since 1986.  These tours, unavailable at any other time of year, will provide a deep understanding of the history of the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ wow-factor garden and the remarkably shaped trees within it, whether that is the Great Umbrella tree, the Top Hat, the Toppling Wedding Cake, Homer Simpson, or Queen Elizabeth and her Maids of Honour.  With over 100 trees in the Topiary Garden, there are a wide variety of shapes – pyramids, cones, balls, tiers, spheres and character pieces.

Visitors will also be able to play a game of art hide and seek, exploring the full 10-acre gardens to find 11 paintings hidden away by charity artist, Bob Sutcliffe OBE, as part of his season-long ‘Tree Therapy’ exhibition at Levens Hall.  Bob will also be giving an art workshop on May 12, whilst Levens Kitchen will have topiary-themed edible treats.  

Elsewhere in the UK, Plas Cadnant Hidden Gardens, at Menai, Anglesey, will be offering a Gardener’s Guide Walk on May 12.  Visitors will be able to explore the topiary through the eyes of a gardener and access areas not yet open to the general public.  The walk is at 2pm and is free of charge, although donations to the Friends of Plas Cadnant are welcomed.

At Elton Hall, near Peterborough, the topiary tourism celebration will take place on Thursday May 9, ahead of World Topiary Day.  The property will be opening its Wilderness Garden for one afternoon only, allowing visitors to enter an area not usually available to visitors and see many different species of shaped box. Back in the formal gardens, they can also admire neatly clipped hedges and the artistic shapes on the topiary lawn, with Bertie the Dog  always being a firm favourite.

In France, a plethora of gardens are staging special topiary tourism events.  At Jardins du Mont des Recollets, at Mont Cassel between Lille and Dunkirk, voted France’s favourite garden in the past, there will be guided tours and demonstrations of clipping.

Head to the Dordogne and there are a variety of ways to celebrate World Topiary Day.  At Marqueyssace, the most visited garden in SW France and known for its fabulous topiary and 3-star Michelin Vert Guide View, tourists can enjoy demonstrations of the art of shaping boxwood, over the entire World Topiary Day weekend. Adult entrance costs €12.90 and children aged 10 t0 17 pay €6.50, with under-10s entering for free.

At Jardins du Château de Losse at Thonac, there will be two guided tours each day of the World Topiary Day weekend (May 11 and 12), with an entry price of €10 per person.

At Eyrignac et Ses Jardins near Sarlat, meanwhile, there will be the chance to meet with the gardeners on both May 11 and 12 (9.30am to 5pm).  They will be sharing their expert advice on clipping and shearing, as well as giving topiary clipping demonstrations, pruning both boxwood and yew with hand shears. Adults pay €13.90 and families (2 adults and up to 3 children €42, with various concession tickets also available.

Moving to New Aquitaine, Les Jardins du Pierrail, at Marguéron, there will be free entry on both May 11 and 12 and a chance to both visit the gardens and sample the wines from the family vineyard.

At Huismes, in the Loire region, the Jardins Haute Couture will welcome topiary tourists between 11am and 6pm on May 11 and 12, with free entrance on both days, and provide a demonstration of boxwood and yew pruning by the gardeners. There will be an exhibition of the sculptures of Max Ernst created at La Couture, in the stone-cutting workshops of Gilles Chauvelin. A sale of plants, ollas (JAMET) pottery and an exhibition of sculptors and ceramicists on the theme of biodiversity (in the tearoom) will be other features, along with a topiary art competition in the garden.

At Les Jardins du Manoir de Favry, in the Pays de Loire between Le Mans and Laval, there will be an event between 3pm and 6pm on both May 11 and 12, featuring guided tours that further  the discovery of topiary at Favry. Visitors can learn why boxwood preservation is so important, whilst children can explore topiary art, by going into the footsteps of Olivier de Serres’ educational ludo puzzle game for children aged 8-14.

At Chateau de Bournazel in the Occitane area of France and located between Rodez and Villefrance de Rouergue, tourists can take a 3pm World Topiary Day tour of the Renaissance garden with the castle gardener and attend a workshop on the art and care of boxwood and topiary yew. This is priced at €14, with the possibility of combining the visit with a guided tour of the castle in the afternoon for €21. Reservation by email at chateau.de.bournazel@gmail.com

Near Nice, at Cagnes-sur-Mer, Le Propriété Marro will be offering the chance to discover different topiaries and their history and follow a video explaining the different stages of developing a piece of topiary art. Advice on how to get into topiary art will also be given, with the event costing €4 and free for under-18s.

And, moving to the USA, Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania will be encouraging visitors to explore and take selfies with its impressive topiary collection.

Many more events will also be taking part in French gardens, with these listed at the European Boxwood and Topiary Society website at www.france.ebts.org  The President of that Society, Patrick Salembier, has just recorded a podcast, in which he explains how World Topiary Day has added a focus for his member gardens across Europe and the USA and how it has simultaneously helped increase the knowledge of topiary gardens across the world, including Levens Hall and Gardens.  The podcast can be heard here - https://bit.ly/4ay4fL7

Levens Hall and Gardens’ owner, Richard Bagot, says, “We are thrilled at having been the inspiration for topiary tourism on this scale and for creating an event that has helped make the art of topiary a specific reason to visit gardens across the world.  It is rewarding to receive feedback that confirms how much we have managed to spread the love of topiary and help other visitor attraction gardens attract and wow visitors with their topiary creations and features, which can vary greatly between gardens.

“By backing this with our Topiary Tourism downloadable guide, which helps visitors plan a topiary experience at any time of year, we hope to build on our achievements to date and get more people interested in creating their own topiary too.  We believe that our Topiary Garden’s founder, Monsieur Guillaume Beaumont, who first created topiary here in 1694, would be immensely proud of us.”                                                                                  

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Editors notes

Levens Hall & Gardens is a historic house in the South Lakes, Cumbria, close to Kendal and home to the world's oldest topiary gardens, dating from 1694, created by French garden designer, Guillaume Beaumont. The Hall is a stunning Elizabethan house built around a 13th century pele tower and has close links to the Duke of Wellington, as well as various items which once belonged to him and Napoleon Bonaparte. Levens Park is home to the rare Bagot goats gifted to the Bagot family and a place in which to stroll and enjoy nature. Levens Kitchen is the contemporary new cafe, full of delights for cake lovers and foodies alike.