The English Garden

Enjoy over 60 beautiful gardens a year with The English Garden. Every issue features country, city, cottage and coastal gardens, with advice on how to recreate them. Be inspired by articles written by the country's top garden designers and discover the best plant varieties for your garden, chosen by expert nurserymen and plantspeople.

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The English Garden

This Month • Our guide to plants, people, gardens and events, tasks and shopping in spring

People to Meet • Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture

Out & About • Unmissable events, news and the very best gardens to visit this month

Things to Do • In spring, Jim Cable suggests planting the bulbs of English bluebells and their relative, galtonia, taking action against fuchsia gall mite and sowing chicory seed

Beautiful & Useful • New plants, books, tools and creative designs, plus shopping inspiration

Outside In

THE ONLY WAY IS UP • Jo Thompson’s clever design for this long, thin London garden maximises the available space by planting upwards to create a summery veil of the owner’s favourite flower – romantic roses

Life on the EDGE • The carefully constructed garden at Cuthberts Brae on the Moray coast is a balancing act, teetering on a vertiginous slope that needs special maintenance and protection but is worth the extra effort

The Box of DELIGHTS • A tiny courtyard garden in London’s Primrose Hill is tightly enclosed by tall brick walls that conceal an almost theatrical display of multi-level containers filled with enchantingly unexpected plant combinations

Ahead of THE CURVE • At a creekside garden in West London, Claire Mee has jettisoned lawn, borders and dull rectangular design in favour of colourful planting pockets around a serpentine path and award-winning hard landscaping

Comfort ZONE • The warm embrace of the immersive multi-layer gravel garden at Elmbridge Lodge in Surrey is irresistible to Julia Hickman, being filled with plants collected over the decades, gifts from friends and gardening memories of her late husband, Peter

The Bigger PICTURE • Despite its diminutive half-acre size, the urban garden at 28 Fishpool Street in St Albans weaves together bold planting and dramatic topiary with a sense of humour that make it so much more than the sum of its parts

Infinity & BEYOND • Laura Heybrook has pulled off a very clever trick with her small family garden in Oxfordshire, playing with scale and perspective to produce a space that appears to have no beginning or end

LIGHT-BULB MOMENTS • These ingenious outdoor lighting techniques from the experts will help you add another dimension to even the very smallest of gardens, creating the illusion of space and a warm and welcoming effect

Eat, Drink & BE MERRY • Spring is here, temperatures are climbing, and while it might not yet be peak season for outdoor dining, this selection of garden furniture to suit any space or style should inspire you to plan your space for socialising

Out of the Blue • These ten cool-hued charmers, selected by Stephen Herrington of The Newt in Somerset, will add stand-alone star appeal to a scheme or blend in beautifully

Shine a Light • With their clear, bright blooms, geums will illuminate all manner of garden situations. Val Bourne gets recommendations from Sue Martin, holder of the National Plant Collection of geums, and owner of Brickwall Cottage Nursery in Kent

PRETTY PLATEFULS • Carolyn Dunster, author of new book A Floral Feast, suggests finding room for an edible flower border or container, the pickings from which will turn the most ordinary-looking plates of food into something very special indeed

Spring at Tresillian...