Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i The English Garden

Sally Nex Sally is a gardener and award-winning author, who advocates for sustainable gardening and works for the Peatfree Partnership with conservation charity Plantlife. She visits Yeo Valley Organic Garden on page 32. Heather Edwards Heather is a Somerset-based garden photographer and designer. Originally trained in horticulture, she has been shooting gardens for the past 20 years. Her photos of Mellowstones appear on page 42. Mandy Bradshaw A former news journalist, Mandy is a photographer and award-winning writer who has covered Cotswold gardens for more than 30 years. She visits The Stables and Cotswold Farm on pages 50 and 64.…

Rachel Bailey The head of sustainability for the Society of Garden + Landscape Designers on her holistic and site-responsive approach to design My approach to design has always been to respond to site and location holistically. I have a diploma in permaculture and believe ecology and geology should always be taken into account when starting a project and assessing its site. It’s crucial to think about the materials you’ll use; my PhD was in environmental toxicology so I’m always keen to minimise the environmental impact of our projects. At university my degree was scientific, but I later realised that gardens were my passion. I retrained in garden design at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and set up my own business. I’m proud to have built a thriving studio from nothing…

A house with a garden precariously perched on a rocky hillside would not be most people’s idea of a perfect spot, but owners Jackie and Neil Kennedy spotted the potential of Mellowstones, near Bath, immediately. The location spoke to them with its magnificent uninterrupted views across the Frome Valley, sunny south-facing aspect and fringe of deciduous woodland. “Luckily you could see two existing terraces and what had been here before, and I had a good idea of what I wanted,” says Jackie. But the first designers she approached balked at the challenge presented by the 1:3 slope, especially when they realised they wouldn’t be able to bring in earth-moving equipment to recontour the garden. “There simply isn’t any access. Everything needs to be done by wheelbarrow,” says Jackie. “Then Fi…

Successful gardens take heed of their surroundings, but few give it quite the consideration of Cotswold Farm. At this Arts & Crafts garden, set high up in the Cotswolds, the Gloucestershire landscape isn’t something that’s occasionally glimpsed but an integral part of the design. From formal terraces and clipped topiary to the wildness of the Bog Garden, this steeply sloping site has the surrounding countryside as a constant backdrop. “It’s the first thing you see,” says owner Sarah Birchall. “It’s just a stunning vista.” Balancing the relationship between the gardened and the natural is just one of the challenges that she and her husband, John, face here in the village of Duntisbourne Abbots. History, both family and horticultural, the need to revitalise the garden and the wish to preserve are…

Sheffield Park and Garden in East Sussex was shaped by Capability Brown and Humphry Repton, with colourful and experimental planting added in the early 20th century by owner Arthur Gilstrap Soames. This summer, the next chapter in the grounds’ history begins: Garden for the Future, curated by three-time RHS Chelsea award-winner Joe Perkins has been designed to tackle environmental challenges and to encourage gardeners to consider their wellbeing and that of nature when planning for the future. Jodie Hilton is head gardener at Sheffield Park, and here she suggests ten good climate-resilient plants from the garden to try. Sheffield Park, Uckfield, East Sussex TN22 3QX. Tel: 01825 90231; nationaltrust.org.uk/sheffield-park-and-garden 1 Rhododendron ‘Daviesii’ This hardy deciduous shrub is a member of the Ghent azalea group in our National Collection and is a…

Delicious DISHES A summer menu of dishes featuring garden-grown tomatoes inspires a table styled in a complementary theme. A simple green-striped tablecloth made from Oswin Celadon fabric (£46.50/metre, romo.com) perfectly sets off the red of the dishes. Instead of flowers as a centrepiece, use herbs in terracotta pots alongside tomato-scented candles (£16, ralphsorchard.com). A scattering of ripe, freshly picked tomatoes sets the scene for Worton Kitchen Garden’s delicious tomato tarte tatin. RED ALERT Sunny DELIGHTS Inspired to grow your own heritage tomatoes? Simon Spence, owner and chef at Worton Organic Garden grows these varieties for their flavour: ‘Doctor Carolyn’, ‘Orange Banana’, ‘Feo de Rio Gordo’, ‘Blue Beauty’, ‘Green Zebra’, ‘Czech Beast’, ‘Skykomish’ and ‘Stupice’, sourcing his seeds from realseeds.co.uk. This freshly harvested basket of sweet and juicy tomatoes is headed…

In my mid-teens there was nothing I wanted more than a hi-fi on which to play what were, at the time, newfangled CDs. I saved my pocket money and did odd jobs to boost the coffers, and I even had a chart I coloured in to track my piggy bank’s slow progress towards the required amount. I’m experiencing something similar today because I’m currently saving for a greenhouse and, just like back then, there is nothing I’d like more in the world. We’re hopefully in our ‘forever home’, so I’d like it to be my ‘forever greenhouse’ too. There’s a lot more saving to do, but so keen am I to have the greenhouse of my dreams that I’ve marked its position in the garden with sticks. I was chatting…

Watering your garden is not just good practice but a nurturing ritual. If you’re a frequent traveller, or have a very large garden, consider a discreet drip or smart irrigation system. For smaller spaces, a watering can offers a slower but more mindful and hands-on approach to caring for your plants. Sophie Conran buttermilk watering can, £26.95. Tel: 0345 548 0210; annabeljames.co.uk…

Faced with an empty site at her new home, Linda Marsh knew she wanted something different from the usual Cotswold garden. Not for her roses, topiary and deep herbaceous borders. Instead, her planting embraces perennials and grasses in broad brush strokes of colour. Blue salvias drift into rust-red heleniums; the flat heads of achillea are punctuated by scarlet crocosmia; and dainty spires of pink persicaria give way to Japanese blood grass, Imperata cylindrica. It was a style she was determined to create and her main reason for buying The Stables at Swindon Village, near Cheltenham. “It took me several years to find the right site,” she says. “I saw lots of beautiful houses and gardens, but they were all compartmental gardens and I wanted to do something a bit different.…

Anyone who has ever visited the garden at Gallery near Montrose will know it to be one of Scotland’s most elegant walled gardens. Many glorious afternoons have been spent there since the days when it was owned by the late John Simson and his wife Anne, who so generously opened it for the public to enjoy. Gallery House itself dates back to the late 1600s, while the walled garden was built in the late 1700s. When John and Anne Simson acquired the property in 1994, they were inspired by the concept of the colour-themed garden rooms at Crathes Castle in Aberdeenshire and commissioned one of Anne’s art-school colleagues, Veronica Adams, to design their garden in a similar style. Together they created an intriguing garden of one and a half acres…

‘Don’t Leave Empty Handed’, ‘Explosion in the Paint Factory’, ‘Shards of Kryptonite’ – as plant names go, daylily cultivars are definitely at the quirkier end of the spectrum. These are all genuine varieties sold by Paula Dyason of Strictly Daylilies, who explains: “There are over 100,000 registered cultivars, so the naming has to be very specific. Hybridisers have to come up with some rather unusual names because there’s a lack of choice!” As its name suggests, Paula’s nursery focuses entirely on daylilies (Hemerocallis) thanks to a passion inspired by her American mother, who grew over 200 daylily varieties at her home in South Carolina. “She was quite a collector back in her day,” Paula recalls. “My love for daylilies is definitely down to her. I grew up with them and…

FORMAL GARDENS Hatfield House Work on this Jacobean house began in 1607 under instruction from the first Earl of Salisbury, Robert Cecil, and it has remained in the Cecil family ever since. Some 21 miles north of London, it stands on the site of the Old Palace of Hatfield, where Elizabeth I learned of her ascension to the throne. Highlights include parterres in the East Garden, a maze of yew hedges, topiary and a walk of pleached lime trees. An ancient mulberry tree is thought to date back to the time of King James I. Hatfield, Hertfordshire. hatfield-house.co.uk Château de Villandry These Renaissance-era gardens date back to the construction of the château in 1532, with archaeologists revealing the presence of a decorative kitchen garden near the house. Around the 18th…

Back in my college days we were encouraged to invest in a decent pair of Felco secateurs, and it’s one purchase that I have never regretted. Of course, there are other brands – you may swear by your Niwaki snips or your Burgon & Ball beauties – but pruning in gardens is never-ending, and good tools make the job a pleasure. So much for sitting back and relaxing in August; instead I’m buzzing around summer-pruning all the early bloomers – and there are a lot of them. Leave it, as I have done on occasion due to holidays and general remissness, and you’ll find the flowers much diminished the following year and everything a bit wild and woolly. A neglected wisteria can quickly remind you of the Sleeping Beauty tangle,…

When you’re greeted at a garden with the cry, “You must try the cake!” you just know it’s going to be a good visit, and Sarah Mead, co-owner, head gardener and chief cake enthusiast, is as warm a host as you could hope for. Yeo Valley Organic Garden may now have expanded to six and a half acres with three staff gardeners, but Sarah has never quite forgotten how it all began, opening for the National Garden Scheme with friends and family volunteering, her “awesome” mother-in-law selling yoghurt through the kitchen window, and (of course) exceptionally good cake. Sarah was a professional dancer in London when she met and fell in love with future husband Tim, her only contact with gardening being a postage stamp sized space “with just enough…

Most of us tend to choose our garden furniture based on how much we like its looks, but there’s more to consider if you want to make a wise buy according to Annie Blackledge, interior designer at Holloways (holloways.co.uk). Just as important is the choice of material. “If a customer lives by the coast where the furniture will be exposed to sea air and salt, we advise them to avoid steel because it will pit and rust over time. Go with outdoor wicker, wood such as teak, or aluminium instead,” she advises. “If you’re in a windy spot, go for something fairly heavy: wrought iron is the favourite, but aluminium will give you more rust resistance. I also always ask if the furniture is going to be moved around. If…

“Some people are quite apologetic when they come up here. They say, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I come here and just sit’,” reflects Tom Attwood, proprietor of Abi and Tom’s Garden Plants at Halecat near Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria. Halecat is perhaps best described as the nursery that tries not to look like a nursery. That’s at least what Tom and his wife Abi had in mind when they took on the lease for this two-acre property in 2011. There had been a nursery on the site for years, and the couple had often visited even as it began to slip into decline. “We’d make a kind of annual pilgrimage up here, but we were also watching a site that was gradually deteriorating. We’d walk around thinking, ‘wouldn’t this…

One of the loveliest, most long-flowering plants for shade or semi-shade is Begonia grandis, but it has lurked under the radar for far too long. Whereas tender begonias, with their striped or spotted or crinkled metallic foliage, have become fashionable as both indoor plants and temporary additions to exotic summer courtyards, the tougher Begonia grandis has not created such a stir. So I’d love to persuade you to look at this beautiful and versatile plant again. My first encounter with Begonia grandis subsp. evansiana was in the Inner Temple Garden, a three-acre oasis in central London, (incidentally, the perfect lunch spot, open weekdays from 12.30pm). In a quieter, shadier part of the garden, away from the dynamic long borders and aromatic Mediterranean planting, the begonia was used simply but cleverly…