August 2024

The English Garden

Bringing the UK's most beautiful gardens to life.

The English Garden2 min read
Welcome
Sometimes, gardening does make me feel as though I’m wishing my life away. We’re in the middle of summer and I’ve already got half an eye on next spring as I start mulling over the bulbs I’d like to order this autumn – not helped by the emails I rece
The English Garden1 min read
The English Garden
For everyone who loves beautiful gardens theenglishgarden.co.uk The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT Tel: 020 7349 3700 Email: theenglishgarden@chelseamagazines.com Editorial EDITOR Clare Foggett DEPUTY ED
The English Garden1 min read
This Month
Coming into its own in August, this hydrangea is a really special shrub. When it’s happy it bears masses of flowerheads, each one a lovely combination of bobbly purple sterile flowers in the centre and contrasting palest mauve, almost white, fertile
The English Garden2 min read
People to Meet
The founder of the Flowers from the Farm cooperative has a new network for growers of plastic-free, compostable funeral flowers I grew up on the family farm in Yorkshire, where I still live, so I’ve been aware that the weather is in charge and soil i
The English Garden2 min read
Beautiful & Useful
Outdoor storage is often overlooked. A shed is handy for tools or the lawnmower, and furniture fares better under cover in winter. But during inclement spells and in the shoulder seasons of spring and autumn, a neat, weather-resistant storage unit in
The English Garden1 min read
Out & About
Join The Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith’s not-for-profit CIC, for a talk, workshop or event this summer. Hosted in The Apple House at the heart of The Plant Library – a living catalogue of 1,500 herb
The English Garden1 min read
Contributors
Constance grew up in Tuscany, where the big garden challenge was deterring boar and porcupines. She now tends a more tranquil garden in London and writes about Glenarm Castle on page 26. Britt focuses on garden, flora and nature photography. She is k
The English Garden3 min read
Nature Finds a Way
The central idea of what I’ve tried to do in the garden is to question the impression many gardeners have that they’re somehow ‘reconnecting with nature’. I have doubts about that. I’d prefer to say that they’re controlling nature. But, given our pow
The English Garden6 min read
A PASSION Shared
It takes skill and dedication to restore a neglected garden, and it also helps to have youth and energy on your side. Randal McDonnell, then Viscount Dunluce and now the Earl of Antrim, was just 25 when his father handed over the keys to Glenarm Cast
The English Garden3 min read
Things to Do
Over the course of my gardening career, I have been called on a surprising number of times to deal with an unproductive apple tree. Typically the owner, in a bid to reduce the size of the tree, has had it severely pruned during a previous winter. The
The English Garden5 min read
The Beat Goes On
When it comes to planting her garden, Jenny Woodall is all about colour. Starting out “very originally” as she puts it, Jenny was a fashion buyer for John Lewis and her passion for colour and form has stood her in good stead throughout the creation o
The English Garden5 min read
She Wanted A Garden
This is the story of a miraculous conversion. Not one of those visions-of-angels, crashing thunderbolts, hallelujah moments but something a little less spectacular yet equally life changing. It is the story of how someone went from being a fair-weath
The English Garden5 min read
Fruitful FUTURES
The land at Acorn Bank gardens in Temple Sowerby, Cumbria, can be traced back to the 1200s when it was owned by the Knights Templar. While there is no evidence of buildings or gardens from that period, however, what is certainly known is that the cur
The English Garden4 min read
Times Change
Tucked away near the picture-postcard Devonshire village of Kenn, with its thatched roofs, idyllic church and busy pub, is Bickham House, a rambling 17th-century pile set amid six acres of gardens. It has been in Julia Tremlett’s family since it was
The English Garden5 min read
Time Stands Still
If you’ve ever fancied something unusual for the garden, a novelty or focal point that elicits conversation, you might consider a particularly rare hand-carved limestone gargoyle dating from the early 15th century. On sale for £850 through Lichen Gar
The English Garden1 min read
Directory
York stone steps, putti finials and classical figures are all within the remit of this Cotswold dealership. Tel: 01386 584414; architectural-heritage.co.uk Fashionable interiors dealer, located in Tetbury, offering a good selection of garden antiques
The English Garden3 min read
Juice From A Stone
Paula Fleming manages the fruit trees at Raymond Blanc’s hotel Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire. “Le Manoir’s orchard has around 2,500 fruit trees and about 230 varieties, which are a mix of heritage, eaters and culinary types,” she says. Ap
The English Garden5 min read
New Wave
Prairie-style planting, also known as New Perennial planting, has been one of the most influential trends in gardening of the past few decades. Combining ornamental grasses with drifts of colourful perennials and celebrating the faded beauty and intr
The English Garden7 min read
A Step Ahead
Rachel has been growing cut flowers at her Oxfordshire farm, Green & Gorgeous, since 2008. She shares which seeds she’s excited about sowing this autumn: pretty pastels and perennials Icelandic poppies are one of our best sellers and work well sown i
The English Garden4 min read
City Limits
Originally an area of industrial riverfront, The Hepworth Wakefield’s one-acre site stretches between the modernist gallery designed by Sir David Chipperfield and the recently restored Grade II Victorian Mills opposite. The River Calder spans one end
The English Garden5 min read
Tresillian in August
Late summer has settled upon the walled garden at Tresillian House in Cornwall. Days are warm and languid, and although there is still plenty of fine weather to come, the sun rises later and sets earlier and plants are responding accordingly. The gro
The English Garden5 min read
Plant Zoo
Deep in the Norfolk countryside, just east of King’s Lynn and not far from roads oft-travelled by holiday makers en route to the coast, lies the marvellous West Acre Gardens. With a diverse free-to-view collection of rare and beautiful plants and an
The English Garden1 min read
Next Issue
ARTIST MATTHEW RICE’S GARDEN 1920s STYLE AT COLETON FISHACRE RECIPES FOR AUTUMN POTS SMALL-SCALE PRAIRIE PLANTING ■
The English Garden3 min read
Going for Gold
The request was a first: to design a front garden consisting entirely of plants with yellow flowers. The young artist clients had even sent me a list of plants that, although they realised might not work well in this hottest south-facing spot, noneth

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