The English Garden

Enjoy over 60 beautiful gardens a year with The English Garden. Every issue features country, city, cottage and coastal gardens, with advice on how to recreate them. Be inspired by articles written by the country's top garden designers and discover the best plant varieties for your garden, chosen by expert nurserymen and plantspeople.

From the Editor

The English Garden

This Month • Our guide to plants, people, gardens and events, tasks and shopping in December

People to Meet • Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture

Out & About • Unmissable events, news and the very best gardens to visit this month

Things to Do • Powering through her pre-Christmas to-do list, Jane Moore tidies both shed and garden before the enjoyable yearly task of stripping old hellebore foliage

Beautiful & Useful • New plants, books, tools and creative designs, plus shopping inspiration

The Wish List • Get your Christmas shopping wrapped up with our special selection of covetable gift ideas for the gardener in your life

Sign of the TIMES • Sir Kenneth Carlisle sees gardens as ephemeral, reflecting the tastes of each new incumbent. As he and his wife Lady Carla pass the baton to the next generation at Suffolk’s Wyken Hall, some monumental changes are afoot

OFF CENTRE • At Doynton House near Bath a lack of symmetry has resulted in a fascinating garden, whose odd angles give it unmistakable charm

A Place for EVERYTHING • By uniting the disparate sections of land around Church Barn in Essex and providing discrete areas for everyday living, Stefano Marinaz has stayed true to his guiding principle of making gardens functional spaces for people to be in

Too BEAUTIFUL • The joyous Ichi-Coo Park is a fitting tribute to its talented creator, the late Robin Redmile-Gordon, who sadly died this October. On a barren sloping site overlooking Gatwick Airport, he created a series of quirkily themed and named gardens that now stand as an incredible lasting legacy

Level BEST • At Old Park Barn in Buckinghamshire, James and Emily Chua have spent almost 30 years making sense of a complicated site that slopes away in two different directions, connecting areas stage by stage with cleverly deployed landscaping

Tried & Trusted • John Anderson, keeper of the gardens at Windsor Great Park, draws on his wealth of experience to recommend ten reliable plants for today’s climate

Max Factor • With their huge bulbs producing enormous and dazzlingly glamorous blooms, hippeastrum make a festive floral finale to the year, with plenty of eye-popping colours beyond red

GREEN LIGHT • Brighten up the winter garden with an unseasonal splash of green from a special selection of superb evergreen shrubs and trees chosen to add a little bit more interest than the usual suspects provide

The Bright Stuff • Gardens across the country are transformed in the run-up to Christmas with trails of magical illuminations. See your favourite garden in a whole new light during one of these festive and family-friendly evenings out

DECK THE HALLS • Christmas is an opportunity to bring the garden indoors, using foliage, berries and dried flowers to create festive decorations and displays. Kevin Martin, head gardener at Glyndebourne, shares ideas drawn from his 33 years of experience

Can-Do Attitude • A look back at the fascinating history of watering can evolution over the centuries highlights a plethora of styles, helping you to build your own attractive collection

Small Wonders • Seeking a timeless glasshouse suited to a small space, Non Morris speaks to Beth Gregg, whose reproduction Victorian cloches could be just the ticket