Gardens Illustrated is THE gardening magazine – ever since Claudia Zeff, wife of the entrepreneurial publisher John Brown and now an author and editor herself, first persuaded her husband that a top notch gardening magazine was needed.
Under the first editor, Rosie Atkins, Gardens Illustrated was launched in 1993 from the first floor of a modern block off Crabtree Lane near the river Thames in Fulham. I recall walking up the outside cast iron staircase and through the small office - HQ of publications Viz and The Fortean Times to an equally small office where Rosie, Claudia and a couple of others beavered away.
This was my introduction to Gardens Illustrated that persisted first to John Brown’s next much-enlarged premises off Bramley Road, north Kensington. Then, after John Brown had sold the magazine to the BBC, on to their media offices near the Westway in White City, by then under editor Clare Foster in a huge open-plan office.
Following a convenient (for me) move to Bristol and subsequent BBC sale to Immediate Media, it was by then Juliet Roberts at the helm, followed by Lucy Bellamy and more recently Stephanie Mahon.
Check out our favourite Gardens Illustrated covers.
I have been involved as a writer and consultant botanical adviser on every issue of the magazine since the beginning. It satisfies what Claudia Zeff required for the readership, namely a high quality magazine produced by garden writers, designers, historians and keen gardeners of every make, shape and kind.
The photographs are always of great quality and the team of editors among the best in the magazine world. My friends, who number among them botanists, professional gardeners and garden designers all read Gardens Illustrated. It has inspired and entertained them in equal measure and has had an enormous impact on horticulture throughout the UK and beyond.