Gardens
Find inspiration from gardens of all sizes both in the UK and internationally
Tom Stuart-Smith to design largest ever RHS feature garden and a surprise pop star turns his hand to garden design at RHS Badminton Flower Show this year
A huge feature garden is being planned by world-renowned garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith and there will be a surprising appearance from a popstar at RHS Badminton 2026
A peaches-and-cream container combination for a bold early summer planter
Create a gorgeous early summer container display with designer Katie Guillebaud's easy-to-recreate pot recipe.
Naked space between garden plants has become unfashionable. Here's how Nigel Slater fills the gaps.
For most of the year, Nigel Slater is obsessed with filling bare patches with the
perfect underplanting, except when it comes time to mulch
Save 30% Off The Shop Price When You Join As A Member To Gardens Illustrated Today
Save 30% off of the shop price when you join as a member to Gardens Illustrated today
27 features that are making your garden look dated
Does your garden look old fashioned? Here are the giveway signs
What's new?
"Gardens and green spaces are for everyone and everything": Meet horticulturist Sam Southgate
Horticulturist Sam curates the woodland banks in Lady Anne’s Garden at RHS Garden Rosemoor. Portrait Jason Ingram
Discover this naturalistic, flower-filled garden on an old pony paddock
Jo Hoy’s Bedfordshire garden is testament to her skill in balancing self-seeded natives, prized ornamentals and structural trees and shrubs
Winner of Gardens Illustrated Readers' Choice for RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 revealed
Discover the garden GI readers voted their favourite of RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2026 in the first ever GI Readers' Choice game.
There is a WRONG time to water your plants in a heatwave. Experts say THIS is when to water in hot weather
In the heatwave, make sure you're watering your plants at the right time of day
Discover this gorgeous wild garden in Mallorca, designed to test how plants behave with different levels of human interaction
For his own new garden on the Balearic island of Mallorca, designer Luciano Giubbilei has created a wild, romantic space to experiment and observe how plants behave with different levels of interaction
Rural
This subtropical oasis is a must-visit garden this year
Trebah Garden in Cornwall captivates visitors, new and returning, with its dramatic setting and collection of subtropical plants
Discover this woodland-glade fairytale garden with a dream-like feel
Over the past 25 years, Frances Druce has created a Himalayan-inspired garden around her West Sussex house hidden in a woodland glade
Visit this 20-year passion project garden on a former stud farm, where double mirrored borders have brought visitors to tears
Old Bladbean Stud in Kent is a romantic country garden that has unfolded slowly over 20 years
Meet the gardeners
"If we want to save our ancient woodlands, we need to look beneath our feet" says award-winning garden designer Ashleigh Aylett
RHS Chelsea Flower Show designer Ashleigh Aylett explains why restoring rare ancient woodlands is central to the inspiration for her All About Plants garden
“You never get to do anything quite so creative”: Catherine MacDonald on Chelsea and designing gardens for The King
The award-winning designer Catherine MacDonald on the importance of teamwork, designing gardens for HM The King and why she always looks forward to Chelsea.
“I still get a buzz out of coming to work" - meet the modest nursery manager of one of the world's most famous gardens
The self-effacing manager of the Great Dixter Nursery on learning from Christo and nurturing the next generation of growers.
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 best hotels with gardens in the UK: stay at these places for a luxury garden experience
From majestic castles to romantic country cottages, here are 29 of our favourite hotels with gardens, including B&Bs and self-catering getaways
The historic Scottish garden getting a centenary makeover - using 200-year-old designs
The award-winning Harris Bugg Studio is designing the Centenary Garden at Newhailes House near Edinburgh
This garden designer said no to pastels to create his colour-packed plot inspired by his travels
Planting designer Jānis Raubiška has taken inspiration from across the world for his vibrant garden in Surrey
Gardens of the world
Worldwide gardens you need to see
Meet the couple who turned an empty field into a colourful organic nursery in the shadow of the Alps
Those eager to find organic, home-grown, colourful perennials will delight in Stauden Kopf nursery, in the shadow of the Alps in Austria.
This Californian mini meadow garden is an inspiring sanctuary for a well-known recording artist
Plantsman John Greenlee, the grasses guru, has created a sumptuous new meadow garden with tropical touches for a historic house in Palo Alto.
The Moroccan hillside garden preserving the landscape almost obliterated by urban expansion
At Rohuna, writer Umberto Pasti has conjured a remarkable garden from a barren Moroccan hillside, where he wants to conserve the local flora.
Urban gardens
Amazing gardens from towns and cities
This back-to-front garden in the Cotswolds flips the expected to great effect
Emily Crowley-Wroe has used her own front garden in the Cotswolds to trial design and planting ideas.
The perfect solution for a long, thin, sloping garden that the whole family can enjoy
Over 20 years, garden designer Emily Erlam has nurtured and edited the plants in her sloping city garden to create an intriguing, immersive space. She explains how.
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.