Gardens
Find inspiration from gardens of all sizes both in the UK and internationally
Nigel Slater knows how to give the perfect present, and what gardeners don't want
Tis the season for gifting, and Nigel Slater has his eyes on the perfect present.
Gardening events and shows in 2025 and 2026
All the big names in one place. Here's our guide to the gardening calendar's biggest and best gardening events for the year ahead
Best UK gardens open for Boxing Day walks
Many UK gardens are open this festive season, so why not work off your Christmas indulgence between Boxing Day and New Year with a winter walk at one of these 13 great open gardens?
Get a classic garden apron when you join as a member to Gardens Illustrated today
Get a classic garden apron when you join as a member to Gardens Illustrated today
'They don't grow in the dark': It's easier than you think to grow your own gourmet mushrooms
Two food-obsessed sisters have turned a mission to create exciting meat-free meals into a thriving mushroom business.
What's new?
The best outdoor wall lights for your garden in 2025
Formal or relaxed, vintage or modern. Here are 10 of the best outdoor wall lights for the garden.
Great last minute Christmas gifts: gardening memberships and subscriptions for 2025
Looking for a Christmas gift for a gardener after the last Christmas post delivery date? We've got the best gardening membership and subscription gifts you can still buy and gift in time for Christmas
These eye-catching evergreen shrubs produce bold rose-like blooms in winter
The group of camellias known as ‘sasanquas’ flower in autumn to early winter, bringing much-needed colour and often delicious scent to late-season gardens
The best garden pergolas to upgrade your outdoors
We've chosen some of the best pergolas on the market to enhance your garden with an outdoor space.
Best gins with botanicals for 2025 - have yourself a merry Christmas with these herbal tipples
The Gardens Illustrated team has rounded up the best botanical gins on the market.
Rural
This is what happens when a garden designer couple with wildly different tastes take on a new home garden
Around their Cumbrian home, designers
Julie Toll and Ian Kitson have created a contemporary garden fully embedded in its heritage location.
Discover the jobs that keep the gardeners at Sissinghurst busy in winter
Troy Scott Smith, head gardener at Sissinghurst, explains how he and his team prepare the world-famous garden for the year ahead.
Photographs: John Campbell
'Maximum effect, minimum effort'. This Welsh country garden is a masterclass in autumn colour
Building on the work of generations of plantspeople, Elizabeth and Ross Murray have breathed fresh life into Llanover Garden in southeast Wales
Meet the gardeners
Tackle the hardest task first and think seven generations ahead: advice from Kew's Aimee Spanswick
Horticulturist at the new Carbon Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Aimee is passionate about permaculture and dismantling outdated ideas
There's a worrying trend in US gardens that's driving one American man's inspiring work
The director of horticulture at Native Plant Trust on slug hunting, turning American gardeners into backyard conservationists and the power of mentoring
"My garden might look weedy to some, but I’m not bothered" says designer Tom Massey
Landscape designer Tom Massey on
why we should all be saving rainwater, his tiny courtyard and why everything starts with the soil
Gardens to visit
Visiting a beautiful garden can be a wholly enriching experience. The benefits of visiting a garden – from mental health right through to exercise – are huge, and garden days out are perfect ways to have fun on your own, or as an entire family.
Regardless of how, and whoever you visit with, we have a host of suggestions of which gardens to visit, from gardens for the season, through to the gardens that are in full bloom and at their best each month. We have collated lists of the best gardens to visit with the help of our experts and many years of visiting gardens all around the UK, and beyond. We have gardens organised by theme, days out and local area, so you should find something for wherever you are and whatever garden experience you are looking for.
Enjoy our comprehensive guide to the best gardens to visit in the UK.
The most inspiring winter garden walks
It may be cold outside but you can still visit beautiful gardens over the winter months. Here's our top picks of UK open gardens to visit for a refreshing winter walk
Leaf peeping alert! The glorious 60-acre woodland you need to visit for blissful autumn walks
Ablaze with astonishing autumn colour, Evenley Wood’s impressive collection of trees and shrubs places this Northamptonshire garden – already well known for its spring bulb displays – even more firmly on the map
Gardens to visit in November for glorious autumn colour
Head gardener Tom Brown recommends the gardens to visit the month of November to see seasonal plants at their best
Gardens of the world
Worldwide gardens you need to see
'It's like living inside a painting'. Piet Oudolf's dreamy Nantucket island garden
For this Nantucket island hideaway, the cedar-shingled buildings are nestled around a courtyard with an archetypal meadow by Piet Oudolf
We bought an abandoned olive grove and brought it back to life with a meadow-style garden of wildflowers
A hillside garden in southern Italy with a distinctly Mediterranean planting palette is alive with the echoes of civilisations past
There’s no lawn or ugly play kit but my kids still love our garden: how to make yours both family friendly and beautiful
Dutch garden and landscape designer Arjan Boekel has transformed his tiny town garden in the Netherlands into a miniature woodland glade
Urban gardens
Amazing gardens from towns and cities
This 1960s home has been transformed by a contemporary chic garden makeover
For her own garden, designer Lucy Willcox has transformed a sloping site, blending the wildness of a neighbouring common with the sharp lines of her 1960s home.
Instead of downsizing, this couple revamped their garden into a haven for them and their grandkids
By introducing bold swathes of planting, designer Barbara Samitier transformed a large lawn into an enticing garden with multitudes to discover
From new-build construction site to low-maintenance wildflower haven: this meadowscape is the smart way to do easy eco gardening
Designer Kristina Clode has created this vision of wild immersion, mostly from seed, for an accessible new eco home set in The Weald.