Our 300 th ISSUE

In October 1996, I started working on the March/April 1997 launch of The English Garden. Three hundred issues on, it’s a good opportunity to revisit gardens from 25 years ago and see how they have changed.

Perhaps surprisingly, many are still in the same hands. Our first cover story was THE MANOR HOUSE at Heslington near York, a quintessential English garden of cherry blossom and tulips in spring, with summer borders of delphiniums, lupins and Canterbury bells. It remains the home of florist and gardener George Smith, and his partner Brian Withill. Now 87, George still gardens daily. “The trees have matured,” he tells me. “Our borders have expanded and we have extended the garden but we haven’t made all that many changes.”

A rare fern survives from 25 years ago, despite being stepped on accidentally by our photographer Jerry Harpur. ‘Plumosum Cristata Drueryi’ was subsequently dug out of the border and is now doing well