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'There is only a handful of fruit trees I’d grow for their non-edible charms — quince is one'
A versatile fruit that's superb in jams and with booze, quince also doesn't make you work too hard for all that pleasure.
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Everything you could ever want to know about growing, eating and cooking plums
Mirabelles, gages, plums, damsons — the best ones to buy, the ones to avoid, and how to use them. Charles Quest-Ritson has you covered.
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'Knowledge, energy, creativity and enthusiasm... He's a sensation': Meet the golden boy of English horticulture
Charles Quest-Ritson meets the best of the next generation of gardeners tending to some of the nation's best gardens.
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Revisit the Lincolnshire house once described by Roosevelt as 'almost too good to be true', and later dismantled brick by brick
Our original article on Easton Hall in Lincolnshire from January 25, 1902, allows readers to see what the estate was like when the main house was still present in all its glory.
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'We want everyone to have a magical time': Life at the smartest flower farm in the Cotswolds
Mary Keen visits the organically run Chippy Flower Farm in Oxfordshire, set up five years ago and already a great success locally — especially its pick-your-own area. Photographs by Jonathan Buckley.
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Sophie Conran's garden at Salthrop Manor, and its journey from bare field to Cotswold paradise
The walled garden at Salthrop Manor — home of Sophie Conran — hums with life and colour. It’s hard to believe that this was merely a field not so long ago, as Tiffany Daneff explains; photography by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Country Life.
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Alan Titchmarsh: You wouldn't think it, but Surrey is the most wooded of all England's counties — and its Scots pines are as beautiful as any of its trees
Alan Titchmarsh is selling his house
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What Britain's top garden designers are planting now to create dazzling spring meadows around their homes
Non Morris reveals the techniques behind the contemporary take on William Robinson’s original idea of naturalising bulbs in long grass, creating an effect even more dazzling than a meadow.
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This restoration of a Cliveden garden honours the original vision of Norah Lindsay’s 1930s design
A biodiverse climate-friendly planting scheme replaces the annual bedding displays at this National Trust garden in Buckinghamshire.
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'Why do I allow the fuchsias in my garden to live on? Because, despite their visual shortcomings, I am a fool for edible pleasure'
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The best flower borders in Britain, and how they work their magic
We may have invented the flower border, but planting them remains one of the trickiest things to get right. Charles Quest-Ritson looks at the secrets behind the very best.
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The enchanting world of Christian Dior’s gardens
Christian Dior’s love of gardens and gardening is celebrated in a new book and exhibition at his family home.
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Inverewe: The making of 'The Oasis of the North' in a wind-battered corner of north-west Scotland
Innovative 21st-century composting and mulching techniques combined with a 19th-century shelterbelt ensure that the famous gardens of Inverewe in Wester Ross continue to thrive. Caroline Donald explains more; photographs by Andrea Jones.
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Alan Titchmarsh: 'I am so weary of seeing Lutyens-style benches and chairs absolutely everywhere'
A strategically placed chair doubles as a focal point and a spot to rest — but we need to move on from Lutyens-style ones says our regular garden columnist.
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Blurring the lines between ornament and recreation: Nine of Britain’s best Arts-and-Crafts swimming ponds
Before the vogue for bright blue, chlorine-treated swimming pools, members of Victorian and Edwardian society built naturalistic bathing ponds inspired by the Arts & Crafts movement.
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Ballynure House: The magical estate that transformed its bramble-covered historic garden into a pollinator paradise
Where brambles once engulfed the historic gardens at Ballynure House in Co Wicklow, Ireland — home of Clare Reid Scott — colourful flower borders now hum with pollinators. Photographs by Jonathan Hession.
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Defanging the Gardens Trust will hurt our most precious landscapes
The Government has proposed to remove the Garden Trust's position as a statutory consultee in planning permissions for up to 1,700 historic landscapes and gardens in order to speed up building.
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The pinnacle of the English style of gardening, as fine today as it was a century ago
Charles Quest-Ritson has just returned to Great Dixter for the first time in years — and it's 'the high point of all my garden visiting for a long time. I cannot recommend it too highly'.
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300 years old, 40ft tall, 30ft wide: The world’s largest yew hedge has just received its annual trim
August is hedge-trimming season on the Bathurst Estate, in Cirencester.
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The curious incident of the vanishing glasshouses: Country Life's photographs are all that remains of these awe-inspiring structures
The ‘winter garden’ and the ‘terraced grounds of exquisite beauty’ were two of Cherkley Court’s featured attractions. They were advertised for sale in Country Life in 1910 — and then they vanished.
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Eat up your daylilies: The underappreciated east Asian flower that's a marvel in the kitchen
Mark Diacono was at first suspicious of cutting the stem of a gorgeous red daylily, until he realised how delicious they are.
