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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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‘I was rather excited, not remotely daunted... With hindsight, I should have been': The 25-year creation of the gardens of Glenarm Castle
Pay a visit to the gardens at Glenarm Castle in Co Antrim — home of Randal and Aurora McDonnell — is hard to credit that nearly all of the present garden was made this century, marvels Kathryn Bradley-Hole. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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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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'Knoll offers a masterclass in the adaptability of grass': The Dorset garden that went from tourist attraction to specialist nursery
Tilly Ware visits Knoll Gardens in Dorset, which offers a masterclass in grasses and how to make your garden stay beautiful for longer.
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'Each one is like a coral reef in an agricultural desert': One man's mission to rewild the swimming pool
At a fraction of the cost of a traditional pool, David Pagan Butler’s pioneering organic alternative has a global fanbase and he’s on a mission to share his knowledge.
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The grass isn’t always greener on the other side: Five alternatives to lawn, from fleshy sedums to aromatic thyme
No Mow May and similar initiatives want to inspire gardeners to replace their lawns with pollinator-friendly alternatives — but knowing where to start and what to do is an off-putting minefield.
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What everyone's talking about this week: It's time to follow in the footsteps of King’s College, Cambridge, and kiss the lawnmower goodbye
Week in, week out, Will Hosie rounds up the hottest topics on everyone's lips, in London and beyond.
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The rose that flowers 'from October to summer', and the man who used it to light up a beautiful corner of London
George Plumptre pays tribute to the late Roger Phillips, whose seminal book on trees has been updated almost 50 years after its initial publication.
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'Other people would have given up and turfed half of it over': The couple who turned 'the ugliest house with the nicest view' into a Somerset treasure
With many viewpoints and changes of level, Grove Ley in Somerton, Somerset — home of Dr and Mrs Michael Horder — was not an easy site on which to make a garden. But key to its success, writes Caroline Donald, has been enlarging the pond and creating long beds full of robust perennials and grasses. Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
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Isabel Bannerman: Gardens fade in the heat of high-summer, but it's still possible to plant pockets of joy in shaded spaces
This is traditionally the time of powdery daisies caked in sun, but our writer craves a 'spritz' more likely found among shade-loving plants in damp-holding places.
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Plant once, enjoy for decades: Alan Titchmarsh on the wonder that is the agapanthus
Agapanthus has a special place in Alan Titchmarsh's heart.
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'I blitzed it. Nothing survived. If you have one bit of surviving bindweed, you will have it forever’: A peek in to the ruthless world of the gravel garden
Since they appeared in the 1990s, gravel gardens have grown in popularity, especially in recent years. What are the keys for success? Non Morris asks some of Britain's top experts in the field, from the brutal work needed to get started through to the plants that only work 'if you get rid of soil entirely'.
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A lush, 'tropical' garden in Devon where bananas and ginger grow happily alongside the staples of an English country garden
Steep inclines and rocky outcrops are nothing to the owners of this coastal garden, which is filled with plants-many from the southern hemisphere-that thrive in such conditions, finds Caroline Donald.
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25 design books that will transform your ideas, as recommended by Britain's leading interior and garden designers
Giles Kime spoke to some of the best designers and gardeners to get their recommendations on the books that constantly prove a source of inspiration in their work.
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Five British gardens have a starring role on the New York Times's list of 25 must-see gardens — here are the ones they forgot
Multiple British gardens have topped a New York Times list.
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Don't judge a plant by its smell: Why 'the little stinkers of the natural world' are just doing their job
Reminiscent of love and with an unmistakable odour of death, the little stinkers of the natural world might incite repulsion, but they are only doing their job, pleads Ian Morton
