Gardens
Find inspiration from gardens of all sizes both in the UK and internationally
10 cool, alternative garden festivals and events to enjoy this summer
From a compost festival to an exhibition displaying a 1500s gardening manual, there are plenty of fascinating events to attend this summer.
This is how you make a modern cottage garden: inspiring contemporary update tips from a revamped Cotswolds hideaway
The traditional English country garden gets a contemporary update at this renovated cottage in the Cotswolds, discovers Petra Hoyer Millar.
Spend less time and effort gardening with these pro gardener hacks for a beautiful low-maintenance space
Love gardening but short on time, or looking for ways to make your garden easier to manage? We’ve got smart tips from the experts on how to have a lovely garden with less work
POV: You’ve inherited an historic English hall with two moats and incredible gardens – now what?
Once home to garden designer Xa Tollemache, Helmingham Hall is now under the care of a new generation of Tollemaches and is as glorious as ever, especially in winter when its bones are laid bare.
Words: Chris Young, Photographs: Richard Bloom
Gardening events and shows in 2025
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
What's new?
The best drought tolerant plants to grow to combat drier summers and warmer weather
Looking to add more drought tolerant plants to your garden? Annie Godfrey of Daisy Roots nursery recommends some of the best drought tolerant plants.
Five ways to create a beautiful garden that helps wildlife and lowers your energy bills
Gardening on slopes doesn't have to be a chore: how to turn challenging terrain into garden gold
Sloped gardens offer drama, depth, and beauty. Learn expert design tips to transform challenging terrain into a standout landscape
The ultimate list of bee-friendly plants: 56 beautiful plants that will make your garden buzz
Create a buzz in your garden by adding the plants that bees love best.
Forgot crop rotation: polyculture is the new cool easy way to grow your own without weeding or worrying about pests
At Birch Farm in Devon, Joshua Sparkes is growing food in polycultures alongside pests and weeds with great success
Rural
This clever country design is a masterclass in making a garden to soften that just-finished feel
For this Suffolk garden, designer Colm Joseph has created spaces that link the geometry of the new-build house to
the surrounding vistas of fields and trees beyond
This stylish modern country garden around a listed farmhouse in Dorset is the rural idyll of your dreams
Collaboration between client and designer has resulted in this beautifully curated garden, which exudes a bucolic calm and sits in harmony with the ancient Dorset countryside
The quintessential English flower garden in May, with dripping wisteria, irises and a stunning view
The owners of this charming country garden in Somerset added their own twist to its lush, terraced slopes with romantic, deer-proof planting for early summer.
Meet the gardeners
Permaculture kind of got hijacked by hippies: meet YouTuber, writer and horticulturist Huw Richards
YouTuber, writer and horticulturist Huw Richards explains why his new book will make permaculture accessible, and how it might help you garden better
Meet gardener Carmen Sheridan – ‘Visiting other gardens, events and plant fairs is like mulch for your brain’
Cultural gardener Carmen cares for the Children’s and Community Garden at Wakehurst, Kew, running therapeutic and educational horticulture groups
Discover the designer of the RHS Chelsea Garden of the Year who grew up in the shadow of the A-bomb and pledged his life to creating gardens
Kazuyuki Ishihara on Chelsea Flower Show nerves, and how coming from a city synonymous with war shaped his love of peaceful nature.
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 lavender farms to visit for Instagram-worthy shots and heady scents of summer
Swathes of blue and purple as far as the eye can see – we recommend the best lavender farms to visit for a perfect summer day out
The best places to pick your own sunflowers near you
Fancy picking some sunny blooms to brighten up your home? Here's our selection of the best PYO sunflower farms you can visit this summer
Wondering what jobs to get done this summer? Let Sissinghurst's expert head gardener guide you
Sissinghurst’s head gardener Troy Scott Smith guides us through the jobs that he and his team do in summer.
Gardens of the world
Worldwide gardens you need to see
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
Clever terracing rescued this amazing Mediterranean dry garden on a hillside in Ibiza with stunning views
With a brief to create a terraced garden in the Ibizan countryside, designer Juan Masedo has balanced the ancient and the modern in a remarkably subtle scheme
Urban gardens
Amazing gardens from towns and cities
Parking space vs front garden? It is actually possible to have both
Off-street parking and an attractively planted front garden needn’t be mutually exclusive – there are lots of designs that combine the two.
You'll never believe what lies beneath this cottage-style garden in London
Designer Graham Lloyd-Brunt was put to the test when challenged to create a cottage-style potager in the city for his clients to grow the flowers and crops they wanted, but directly over a basement swimming pool
A small city garden that looks good 365 days a year with top designer tips for interest in every season
In making a garden for photographer Alister Thorpe, designer Stefano Marinaz was keen to ensure there would be something worth shooting every day of the year