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One of the most spectacular rose gardens in England has come in to bloom two weeks early
It's time to head to Mottisfont — come for the roses, stay for the fascinating exhibition shedding new light on the history of this beautiful Hampshire house.
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Hampnett House: A Gloucestershire garden where an empty, squelchy lawn has been replaced by 'gorgeous flowery generosity'
What to do if you inherit a garden that isn’t your style? Tiffany Daneff visits the garden at Hampnett House, Gloucestershire — home of Mr Sanjeev Shah and Ms Mansi Amin — and finds a space that has undergone a major transformation, from high-concept minimalism to flower-filled paradise. Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
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'Nowadays, you can barely throw a heavy brick without it hitting a garden designer’: The renaissance of the country garden
Tiffany Daneff looks at how the English country house garden has been rescued from its thorny slumbers over the last 50 years.
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10 outstanding British gardens from the Country Life Archive
With Chelsea Flower Show is on the horizon, we've mined the 128-year-old Country Life Archives for 10 inspiring gardens from across our Isles.
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Chelsea Flower Show 2025: The essential guide for first timers
The RHS has gone to great lengths to make the Chelsea Flower Show as fun and accessible for people of all gardening abilities. If you're planning to visit for the first time, here's everything you need to know.
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'I'd willingly give a year of my life for a fortnight there': The green dream that is the garden of Derreen
Exotic woods, labyrinths of narrow, mossy paths and thousands of tree ferns make this an internationally important garden, writes Charles Quest-Ritson. Photographs by Jonathan Hession.
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The man who trekked Bhutan, Mongolia, Japan, Tasmania and New Zealand to bring the world's greatest magnolias back to Kent
Magnolias don't get any more magnificent than the examples in the garden at White House Farm in Kent, home of Maurice Foster. Many of them were collected as seed in the wild — and they are only one aspect of his enthralling garden.
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Have your say in the Historic Houses Garden of the Year Awards 2025
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The best rhododendron and azalea gardens in Britain
It's the time of year when rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and many more spring favourites are starting to light up the gardens of the nation. Here are the best places to go to enjoy them at their finest.
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Great Comp: The blissful garden flooded with rhododendrons and azaleas that's just beyond the M25
Each spring, Great Comp Garden — just outside the M25, near Sevenoaks — erupts into bloom, with swathes of magnolias, azaleas and rhododendrons. Charles Quest-Ritson looks at what has become one of the finest gardens to visit in Kent.
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Totally tropical Tresco: The English country garden that brings the tropics to the British Isles
A warm reception awaits visitors to Tresco Abbey Garden — the home of Robert and Lucy Dorrien-Smith — where the year-round temperate climate has created an extraordinarily colourful garden–even in winter. Tiffany Daneff reports, with photography by Clive Nichols.
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G&T to Gravetye and 'the David Attenborough of garden visiting': The Garden tours to book in 2025
One of the best ways–often the only way–to visit the finest privately owned gardens in the country is by joining an exclusive tour. Non Morris tags along.
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The special magic of a frozen garden in winter
Waking up to discover the garden transformed by a short, sharp hoar frost is a magical experience. Tiffany Daneff looks at how to make the most of it, and shares five of the best to visit over the holiday period.
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Alan Titchmarsh's garden: No insecticides, no herbicides, just beautiful flowers, lawns, a statue of Repton and a swing seat that's impossible to resist
It’s always fascinating to see what a high-profile gardening personality does with their own home. Tiffany Daneff visits Alan Titchmarsh’s Hampshire garden, to find a place of endless delights and charm. Photographs by Jonathan Buckley.
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A English country garden that brings the four corners of the world to one corner of Wiltshire
England, Africa, Italy or China — it’s possible to travel the world without leaving this imaginatively designed garden, which divides into four distinct geographical sections, each with a resonance for the owners. Caroline Donald reports from the garden at Seend Manor in Wiltshire, home of Amanda and Stephen Clark.
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The Cotswolds garden that's cleverly designed to defy the worst of the elements
Coates Barn in Warwickshire — home of the Sonneborn family — presented a challenge: how to lay out this exposed north-Cotswold site so as to protect new planting from the elements, and simultaneously provide a garden that three generations of residents could enjoy. Tiffany Daneff explains how they did it; photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
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‘My God! What’s he done?… look at it!’: How George Harrison left The Beatles, turned his hand to gardening, and created a masterpiece
The garden at Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames — the Oxfordshire home of the late Beatle George Harrison and his wife Olivia — is breathtaking. The ‘Gardening Beatle’ did a spectacular job of reviving an historic alpine garden in the shadow of the ‘Henley Matterhorn’, and Olivia has enhanced what was Britain’s largest rock garden with her exceptional and imaginative planting schemes. Charles Quest-Ritson reports.
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Country Life 31 July 2024
Country Life 31 July 2024 looks at fountains and chalkstreams, violins and pirates, and visits the Duke of Beautfort's garden.
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The Hampshire house and garden where D-Day was planned is now a haven with sun-drenched views across calm azure sea to the Isle of Wight
Once the haunt of smugglers and sailors, the Hampshire seashore now shelters a garden where pre- and interwar plantings sit happily with impressive new areas. George Plumptre visits the garden of Lepe House.
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The gardens at Dunvegan Castle: Hard landscaping on the Isle of Skye
Despite their exposed position, the gardens of Dunvegan Castle, home of Clan MacLeod for 800 years, have nurtured an important historic collection of species from around the world and are now going from strength to strength, writes Caroline Donald.
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The gardens of High Moss, a Cumbrian paradise just moments from Derwentwater
Non Morris visits the much-loved gardens of High Moss, in Portinscale, Cumbria — home of Peter and Christine Hughes — and finds a historically fascinating Arts-and-Crafts garden which has been imaginatively brought back to life. Photographs by Val Corbett for Country Life.
