Country Life February 14 2018 meets the royal-wedding florist, explores the love life of birds and reveals the best bespoke engagement rings. Find out more:
NAUGHTY BIRDS: Birds are famous for monogamy – but some are known to bend those rules, as Ian Morton explains.
FLOWERS: Charles Quest-Ritson on a trip to Italy to look at the rose of St Valentine.
DESIGN YOUR OWN ENGAGEMENT RINGS: If you're about to pop the question, or if you're already engaged but yet to get a ring, Emma Hughes has help.
WOODLAND PLANTS: At Caerhays Castle in Cornwall, generations of work have gone into breeding specialist plants.
ARCHITECTURE: Authentic Georgian colours have taken the restoration of Woodhall Park to a different level.
LIVING NATIONAL TREASURE: The gold stamper.
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MUSIC: The world's most romantic composers, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham.
IRISH STEW: Simon Hopkinson shares his recipe for this classic dish.
CHIPPENDALE: The furniture designer's great book reveals another string to his bow.
MY FAVOURITE PAINTING: Sir John Tusa makes his selection – one from an obscure German artist.
WALKING: Fiona Reynolds follows in the footsteps of the founder of the Picturesque movement.
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21 of the greatest craftspeople working in Britain today, as chosen by the nation's best designers and architectsWe've persuaded some of the most celebrated names from our Country Life Top 100 to name the craftspeople they have in their own personal little black books.
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The garden created by a forgotten genius of the 1920s, rescued from 'a sorry state of neglect to a level of quality it has not known for over 50 years'George Dillistone’s original Arts-and-Crafts design at Knowle House, East Sussex, has been lovingly restored and updated with contemporary planting. George Plumptre tells more; photography by Clive Nichols.
