The Gardenist and Travelling Masterclasses is pleased to present 'South of France 2026’, a new itinerary meticulously curated by Michael McCoy. 

In addition to being a playground of the rich and famous and the creative retreat of writers such as Aldous Huxley, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton, the South of France has long nurtured a hub of super-keen gardeners, who saw and extravagantly embraced the opportunity to grow a range of plants that their largely cooler home-climates didn’t allow.

So the Côte d’Azur is studded with gardens of charmingly faded glamour, but is also seeing a rise in landscapes that fully accept the challenges of heat and drought and the consequences of climate change - gardens that turn these harsh realities into design opportunities. 

Join us as we examine the best of the South of France’s glorious past, and its rapid evolution into exciting opportunities for the future. Don’t miss the moment!

“A wonderful experience! Michael’s enthusiasm and careful curating ensured another fabulous trip - and as always travelling in the company of other curious gardeners was a joy.”

Catherine Cretan | 2025 Tour Participant

“A most enjoyable tour, with access to top quality private gardens and designers, followed by a most useful and interesting discussion and critique of the gardens and landscapes viewed.”

Steven Medley | 2025 Tour Participant

Tour features include:

• A visit to a private garden designed by multi-award winning and Monaco-based garden designer James Basson, one with James himself as guide

• A private tour of Le Clos du Peyronnet - the garden that perhaps best embodies the 20th Century Englishman’s Cote d’Azur dreams

• Five nights in the magically beautiful Aix-en-Provence

• A tour of Nicole de Vesian’s Provencal garden, La Louve, created in her retirement, then put her immediately into the international garden spotlight

• A visit to the remarkable Fort Saint-Jean, Marseilles, with its incredible courtyards planted by world famous author and nurseryman Olivier Filippi and botanist Véronique Mure

• A visit of the Abbaye St. André, always considered an exceptionally beautiful garden, but now taken to new heights with wonderfully spontaneous mediterranean planting

• Lunch at Domaine De Métifiot, followed by a wander through the hospital and garden that was the long term residence (and much-painted subject) of Vincent Van Gogh

• Two nights in Sète, the canal-lined fishing port considered the ‘Venice of the Languedoc’

• A visit to the remarkable Chateau Capitoul, a resort planted by James Basson, into almost pure rubble with extremely low rainfall

• A wander through the nursery of Olivier Filippi - a worldwide influence in dry-garden planting

• Several wildflower walks, through both natural garrigue and maquis plant communities

• A stroll through magical village Èze, and on up to its spectacular exotic garden - possibly the most dramatically located and truly compelling cactus gardens in the world.

“The South of France is a wildly charming blend of fading glamour and rising glory, and I’m so looking forward to further exploring its manifold joys with a gang of garden-lovers.”

Michael McCoy