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.

CONTRIBUTORS

Welcome

THE ENGLISH GARDEN

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

Michael’s favourite gardens

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

Things to Do • Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks from Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at Iford Manor

July checklist • Tidy up in the greenhouse and feed old roses after flowering

Don’t forget

Nature to Note • The wonder of wildlife in the garden and countryside this month

SHOPPING

BEAUTY & Usefulness • Koos Bekker and Karen Roos have conceived a breathtaking, feature-filled new garden to sit alongside their world-class hotel, The Newt in Somerset, which builds on the Hobhouse legacy and strives to meet the famous maxim of William Morris

Pick of the PLOT • Susan Dobson’s abundant and colourful Yorkshire garden provided her first with the inspiration for a change of career to floristry, and then with the lovely materials she needed to pursue her calling

FLOWERS OF Distinction • Choice blooms from Susan Dobson’s garden that work wonderfully in floral arrangements

COMPANION Pieces • Susan Dobson recommends her favourite shrubs to add home-grown foliage to flower arrangements

Threads THAT BIND • Harry Buxton sees himself as the custodian of Hoveton Hall in Norfolk, which has been passed down through the generations, with woods, lakes and parkland giving way to carefully laid out gardens, pulled together by the Spider Garden at its heart

The Bee’s KNEES • Six nectar-rich midsummer flowers that are brilliant for attracting pollinators to the garden

WOMEN’S WORK • The wonderful gardens at East Lothian’s Tyninghame House are the combined creation of two women, who worked two centuries apart

Winning FORM • At Highbridge House in Somerset, acclaimed racehorse trainer Paul Nicholls OBE has created a beautiful rose-filled garden in just five years – and it’s now the perfect place to unwind after a day at the races

Once Upon A TIME • There is a distinct fairy-tale quality to 17th-century Wormistoune House near Fife, with its towers and gables and fabled ‘wyrm’. The gardens extend this theme with romantic roses, willow thrones and a recurring serpent motif to fit the legend

BEHIND THE Scenes • Head gardener Joshua Barclay shares clever tips for effective and colourful herbaceous borders

The Nation’s Favourite Gardens • Last year proved the immense benefits gardens have on our wellbeing. So this year, nominate the ones you love that open for the National Garden Scheme, to identify the nation’s favourite

How you can take part

HOW TO NOMINATE AND VOTE

Arches of Triumph • Agriframes, sponsor of our Nation’s Favourite Gardens competition, has a range of versatile steel pergolas, arches and gazebos that will add the perfect finishing touch to your garden

Arch and arbour inspiration • Visit a National Garden Scheme garden this summer

The Perfect Piece • Three curators of outdoor sculpture share their expertise on choosing garden art and displaying it to its best advantage

DIRECTORY

Shady Characters • The Woodland Garden at North Yorkshire’s Newby Hall inspires head gardener Phil Cormie to picks ten shade-loving plants for summer interest

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