Gardens Illustrated Magazine

1 week ago | gardensillustrated.com | Nigel Slater

I have been questioning why I made this garden. What was it that encouraged me turn a perfectly serviceable lawn, a place in which to play and rest, into a home for a stone terrace, topiary domes and climbing roses? Why did I plant an apple tree and a medlar and encourage wild strawberries to runamok in the borders? And what exactly was my thinking behind the inclusion of two sets of yew hedges and a table of potted herbs? Details that inevitably involve more work than play.

1 week ago | gardensillustrated.com | Ed Thorn

We all want to do our part for the environment but the way we design and use our gardens could be more powerful than you think. Whether you’re looking to support local wildlife, make sustainable choices or save money,, these five ideas can help you create a garden that does more with less. Here are five quietly powerful ways to make your garden not just a place of retreat, but a force for good. Some will save hedgehogs. Others might even power your car or your home...

1 week ago | gardensillustrated.com | Veronica Peerless

The idea of bedding plants conjures images of cheerful, brightly coloured annuals such as petunias, busy lizzies, begonias, bedding geraniums and antirrhinums spilling out of summer pots, containers and hanging baskets in gardens, on high streets and in pub gardens. While summer bedding plants give months of colour, they are often compact and brightly coloured, which means that their style can clash a little with the looser, more naturalistic style of gardening that many of us now embrace.

1 month ago | gardensillustrated.com | Ciar Byrne

When it comes to the layout and planting of our gardens, most of us have fixed ideas about how things should be done. Perhaps it was the way our childhood garden was arranged (large lawn with pencil-thin flowerbeds around the edges, anyone?), or something we’ve read in a book or seen on a TV show.

1 month ago | gardensillustrated.com | Matthew Wilson

Picture the scene. Dawn breaks over the desolately beautiful Tien Shan and Pamir Mountains of Central Asia. Miles of dusty, rubble-strewn desert, seemingly empty of any living thing. And then the half-light illuminates the tall inflorescences of hundreds upon hundreds of plants, punctuating the arid land, reaching skyward on stout stems nearly 2m tall, smothered in lightly fragrant flowers: Eremurus.