Tours & Talks

Leading your tour is one of my greatest pleasures. My aim is to make your days as enjoyable, inspiring and interesting as possible.

I have a wealth of experience leading garden tours in the UK, Europe, America and Morocco.

I delight in creating bespoke tours for you and your friends, for particular interest groups or for those who wish to include garden visits as part of their travels.  Typically we would visit a range of old and newer gardens, many of which are not always open to the public. I particularly enjoy weaving history, culture, art and food stories in to a garden tour and can offer a lively pre-dinner introductory talk for your group. My extensive experience as a tour guide and my attention to detail ensures that all aspects of your tour are taken care of so you can save your energy for the good stuff – the gardens!

Whether it’s a single visit or a whole package, let’s talk.

Diary of Events 2026 and beyond …

Come join me on my schedule of garden design events and festivals this year – from private garden tours to design history talks (with a little cake, or possibly a glass of wine en-route), I’d love to see you there!

Stay tuned on this page as I add more events throughout the year, and please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions or suggestions.

Broadway Arts Festival

I am so honoured to be leading group tours to four very different private gardens as part of this prestigious festival.  Broadway was the home of ‘The Colony’; a group of artists, writers and musicians who discovered this (then) sleepy village and made it their base, creating a cultural melting pot of art and gardens.   Come and see some of these and hear the stories of the artists who created these beautiful gardens, their friendships, influences and passions, as well as more modern and exemplary gardens, all set within the Worcester orchards and hills.

Monday 8th and Tuesday 9th June 2026 

To see more of the programme and to book tickets https://broadwayartsfestival.com/events/

 

Boxwood Garden Tours in association with Fine and Cultural Tours

I am delighted to be leading tours to Florence, Normandy, the Italian Lakes and Marrakech this year.

For further information and to book https://www.fineandcultural.com/boxwood-tours

 

Miserden Gardens

Leading private groups around this vast garden, with 11th century origins, alterations by Edwin Lutyens and now with spectacular and vast, ever-changing herbaceous borders

For further information and group enquiries https://www.miserden.org/garden/

 

2027

Burgundy, Norfolk, Kent, the Veneto, Devon and the Cotswolds ……. where next? 

“Your knowledge of plants, gardens and family history as well as being familiar with the area all coupled with your own infectious enthusiasm and caring made this year’s trip one of the best ever and we will remember it for a very long time.”

“I cannot praise our tour guide Marion Mako highly enough. She was professional, caring and very informative – I especially enjoyed her quotations.”

"Water is the eye of a landscape."
Anonymous
"The best way to get real enjoyment out of the garden is to put on a wide straw hat, hold a little trowel in one hand and a cool drink in the other."
Charles Barr
"Within this dell’s green anodyne – Where drowsy falls the thrush’s song – Where flowery cups spill opiate wine – There dwells a slug four inches long."
H.J. Massingham
"The traveller returning from Italy, with his eyes and imagination full of the ineffable Italian garden-magic, knows that he has been under its spell and that it is more potent, more enduring, more intoxicating to every sense than the most elaborate effects of modern horticulture."
Edith Wharton
"A Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
Greek Proverb
"Gardening and architecture owe as much to the nobility and to men of fortune as to the professors."
Horace Walpole
"Find Joy in the sky, the trees, the flowers. There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them."
Henri Matisse
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