April 2024

The English Garden

Bringing the UK's most beautiful gardens to life.

The English Garden1 min read
The English Garden
theenglishgarden.co.uk The Chelsea Magazine Company Ltd, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT Tel: 020 7349 3700 Email: theenglishgarden@chelseamagazines.com Editorial EDITOR Clare Foggett DEPUTY EDITOR Vivienne Hambly ART EDITOR Jeremy Bird
The English Garden2 min read
Welcome
It’s that time of the year: when I get out my stash of vegetable seeds, order anything I’m missing, and then spend a happy hour or so rearranging the packets in my seed tin in ‘sowing order’. Ever the optimist, this is something that March-me believe
The English Garden2 min read
Beautiful & Useful
A classic swing seat sits squarely in investment territory: not cheap but an item you’re likely to have for many years, if not generations. To stand a chance of enjoying one this summer, consider beginning your search or ordering now, since many are
The English Garden3 min read
Things to Do
New growth abounds in the April garden, colouring in the winter gaps. For me it is the acid greens that are most in tune with the freshness and optimism of the season typified by the flower bracts of Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae. The unfurling
The English Garden1 min read
This Month
Host your own ‘hanami’, the Japanese tradition of admiring cherries when they burst into bloom in spring, by planting your own tree. The best cherries not only fill the garden with the prettiest, most life-affirming spring blossom, but also brighten
The English Garden1 min read
Out & About
Kent, 13 April In Faversham this April, Brogdale Farm, home of the National Fruit Collection, will host a celebration of cherry blossom and Japanese culture. Its 150 acres of orchard and some 3,000 varieties of fruit trees makes it one of the best p
The English Garden2 min readArchitecture
People to Meet
The green roof and brownfield gardening expert on creating and promoting public spaces that are rich in biodiversity and joy My love of wild, urban spaces came from growing up in Essex and playing in gravel and chalk pits. They were complicated, surp
The English Garden1 min read
Easter Parade
Celebrate the season with pretty spring-themed homeware. If you’re hosting an Easter brunch this year, these sweet hand-knitted lamb’s face egg cosies will raise a smile while keeping boiled eggs at just the right temperature. For maximum spring appe
The English Garden5 min read
Hidden BEAUTY
Nestled in the heart of the Cotswolds, far from the madding crowd, there exists a sheltered village, a hidden haven where a meandering river weaves a liquid ribbon of serenity through a wooded valley. As spring breathes new life into this secluded vi
The English Garden6 min read
The New OLD WAYS
If trees could talk, the specimens standing in the grounds of Chenies Manor in Buckinghamshire would have some fascinating tales to tell. Set amid 400 acres of peaceful countryside overlooking the Chess Valley, the fortified brick house was built in
The English Garden4 min read
Paint by TULIPS
In the spring of 2019, the garden surrounding Jane and Paul Turner’s newly built Surrey house could be described only as a blank canvas. The entire site was laid to grass, and although Jane was a keen gardener, the lack of any existing features made
The English Garden5 min read
Built to LAST
When Agnete Samdahl and her husband Roland Bonney moved to Stobo in 2021, they’d been looking for a farm. They found the perfect place in Peeblesshire’s picturesque Tweed Valley, but as well as the acres of farmland they envisaged buying, they also t
The English Garden6 min read
A Touch Of Class
There is something undeniably sophisticated about a pergola. Many admire the Harold Peto-designed example in the gardens at West Dean that’s arguably one of the classiest in the country: 100 metres long, with a stone gazebo at one end, a waterlily po
The English Garden4 min read
Colour Parade
It takes something very special to compete with the view at Trench Hill. From the garden’s elevated vantage point, the Cotswold countryside is spread out like a tapestry below, hills folding into each other with a sheep here and a village church spir
The English Garden5 min read
Journey Of A LIFETIME
The gentle caress of spring encourages a kaleidoscope of colours to shine brightly through the garden at Pine House. There’s an exuberant ‘Rudolph’ crab apple, resplendent in its coat of pink blossom, and the walls of the old coach house are daubed w
The English Garden3 min read
Dreaming Spires
Spread across 20 acres, Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire was the site of the renowned women’s horticultural college established by Beatrix Havergal and Avice Sanders in 1932. Since the college’s closure in 1971, Waterperry has been owned by the Scho
The English Garden5 min read
Persistence Pays
Penny Dawson of Twelve Nunns, a mail-order nursery located in rural Lincolnshire specialises in selling Harvington hellebores alongside a few choice woodlanders and bulbous plants. She’s a second-generation nurserywoman, her nursery’s name being a co
The English Garden5 min read
Capture the Magic
When it feels like we’ve been waiting in winter forever, one morning we wake, and there’s that familiar sweet scent in the air, a wet photosynthesising taste on the tongue, and we know that spring is here. Time passes in the pushing up of shoots, the
The English Garden4 min read
Potted Perfection
To me this galvanised steel dustbin is all the more appealing for its dings and dents, which point to its long and practical former life. Its rusted-through bottom dictated its use in my garden as a pot cover: it disguises a heavy-duty 35-litre plast
The English Garden5 min read
Tresillian in April
Victorian walled gardens are relatively common in the grounds of historic country estates, but few of them are still used as they were intended: to provide food and cut flowers to the house. Yet at Tresillian House in Cornwall, a few miles inland fro
The English Garden5 min read
Life is Art
There is no part of the world that Lou Tonkin knows better than Cornwall. Having grown up near Land’s End, she now lives near Falmouth with her children: Ned, Billy and Celia Rose. “Tonkin is an old family name: very much working-class Cornish. Lots
The English Garden3 min read
One Step At A Time
I used to be reluctant to include stepping stones in my garden designs. They are a relatively inexpensive solution and have a lighter impact than a solid path, letting water drain and plants grow up between the stones. But they can annoy because they

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