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The best garden designers and landscape specialists in Britain
A garden or landscape that's in harmony with the buildings within it is one of the great joys of life — and something that the landscape designers and garden designers on our list of the best in Britain understand.
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A cheat's guide to bulbous irises and top tips for growing them
Isabel Bannerman is bewitched and bewildered by bulbous irises.
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Colour photographs of Gertrude Jekyll’s garden, rediscovered in the Country Life Archive, offer a rare glimpse of what it looked like at the peak of her fame
In 1997, Country Life published a set of chromatic photographs of Gertrude Jekyll’s Munstead Wood garden that had lain undisturbed in our archive for nearly a century. We have reproduced the pictures, corresponding feature and captions here.
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A dream built in glass, for herbs, flowers and 'lots of fancy tomatoes'
Gentle curves ensure that this greenhouse fits seamlessly into the corner of an Oxfordshire garden, finds Tiffany Daneff. Photography by Clive Nichols.
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No garden should be without a winter-flowering daphne, so we've picked the best
There is no such thing as a disappointing daphne, Charles Quest-Ritson
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'It was the only design that spoke the same language as the house. It immediately felt right': An Oxfordshire home where house and garden work in perfect, asymmetrical harmony
Understanding the language of this house in the Chilterns was the key to creating a garden that would complement it. Tiffany Daneff takes a closer look, and speaks to both the owner and garden designer Angus Thompson to discover how it came about. Photography by Rachel Warne.
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You don’t need to live in the countryside or have acres of space to start a cutting garden
Amy Merrick consults the expert growers at The Real Flower Company on her new West London cutting garden.
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Intrepid, enterprising, dedicated: The new generation of nursery owners creating the flowers we'll be enjoying for decades to come
David Carver is typical of the new generation of nursery owners, determined to save historic collections and produce new hybrids. John Hoyland paid him a visit to find out more; photographs by Clive Nichols.
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Penns in the Rocks: The East Sussex garden created by Vita Sackville-West, with a little help from the huge boulders that stood here when dinosaurs walked the earth
It’s not only the pre-historic rocks that set apart the garden of Penns in the Rocks, near Tunbridge Wells, says George Plumptre. It's the fact that the layout was created by two horticultural legends: Vita Sackville-West and Lanning Roper. Photography by Jason Ingram.
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'I was utterly bewitched': The heartwarming success story of one of Britain's greatest rose-growers
Charles Quest-Ritson talks to Trevor White, whose Norfolk rose nursery is sought out by enthusiasts for the quality and variety of its stock. Photographs by Richard Bloom.
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William Robinson, the visionary gardener 150 years ahead of his time
A century and a half before the word 'rewilding' entered the gardening lexicon, a pioneering gardener named William Robinson was advocating for a more natural approach to our green spaces. Tiffany Daneff examines his legacy, and his home at Gravetye Manor.
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Springing in the rain: The science behind the smells of the seasons
Spring is just around the corner, and so too is an assault on the senses.
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'It was like going on a blind date... over a few glasses of wine our friendship was sealed and by three in the morning we had a plan': The creation of a spectacular Moroccan garden
Scrubby farmland near Marrakech has been transformed into an exceptional garden with views of the snow-capped Atlas mountains. discovers Kirsty Fergusson discovers the gardens of Riad Nouria, home of Lexi and Helena Oswald. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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Alan Titchmarsh: I'm always asked about 'creating a sensory garden', and my answer is always the same
From the chirruping of the birds to the sweeping of a broom, Alan Titchmarsh shares the sounds that all our gardens have in common.
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RHS to run two new touring shows at Badminton and at the royal estate at Sandringham
The King will collaborate with a designer on the RHS Royal Legacy Garden at the Sandringham flower show.
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The gardeners' gardens: Alan Titchmarsh, Mary Keen, Clive Nichols and more on the places they have on their 2026 hitlists
Which gardens are Country Life contributors most looking forward to visiting this year? We asked them for the where and why.
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Beautiful, rewarding, unpronounceable: Chaenomeles, the spectacular shrub that grows happily in gardens where azaleas will never bloom
So many new types of Japanese flowering quince are now available that they have been the subject of a four-year trial by the RHS. Charles Quest-Ritson picks his favourites; just don't ask him to say their names out loud.
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English country gardens once dotted the French Riviera. Now the last of them is about to slip away forever
Charles Quest-Ritson laments the final closure of the English Edwardian garden at Le Clos.
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Three plants to grow in 2026 that are as delicious as they are pretty, from Siberian chives to 'Turkish warty cabbage'
Our grow-your-own expert Mark Diacono has sound advice for those feeling adventurous in the garden in 2026.
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Seeing the centuries old specimens of Carl Linnaeus in a new light
Safely stored in a dark vault in London, the dried specimens of Carl Linnaeus's 18th-century herbarium have been revealed in their true colours.
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Alan Titchmarsh: Everything you think you know about ivy is probably wrong
The oft-maligned ivy is no parasite, says Alan Titchmarsh: it's a plant that does little harm and much good.
