Country Gardens and gardening tips
Every week, Country Life looks at the country's most beautiful gardens and asks questions about why we dedicate so much time to the pursuit of this natural beauty. These are the most viewed of those articles from 2020.
When Dr Wilfrid Fox began his arboretum in 1938, he envisaged not simply a collection of tree species, but planting on such a scale as to create its own landscape. Under its new manager, this extraordinary place is, at last, being given the attention it deserves, reveals Charles Quest-Ritson.
The lure of a secret garden is as strong now as it was when Frances Hodgson Burnett first published The Secret Garden over a century ago. With a recent film adaptation — the fifth — having hit screens, Juliet Roberts selects a few of her favourite secret gardens.
Troy Scott-Smith, head gardener at Iford Manor, tells the tale of how the great Harold Peto found Iford and used it to his gardening and architectural dreams come to life.
Tiffany Daneff visits Painswick Rococo Garden, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, one of the best examples of a Rococo garden in this country — a place of hidden pavilions and romantic copses watched over by the god of woodland revels. Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
Informed by the Japanese ‘landscape in the garden’ tradition, the naturalistic riverside gardens of Bere Mill, Hampshire, flow with ease into their languid surroundings says Tiffany Daneff. Pictures by Andrea Jones.
James Truscott is entranced by a series of new gardens at Monteviot, near Jedburgh. that that successfully captures the magic of growing up in a place rich in history and legend. Photographs by Andrea Jones.
Among the many beautiful features in Country Life's 29 July 2020 issue — guest edited by The Princess Royal — is the article about the garden at the astonishing Ruvaal lighthouse. Getting the pictures to illustrate it proved to be something of an epic for photographer Andrea Jones.
Steven Desmond visits the early-20th-century garden created at Parcevall Hall in Skyreholme, North Yorkshire, by Sir William Milner and now triumphantly restored. Photographs by Richard Bloom.
Charles Quest-Ritson visits the National Collection of rambling roses, which shows these most romantic of plants at their very finest. Photographs by Britt Willoughby-Dyer for the Country Life Picture Library.
Kathryn Bradley-Hole looks at how the owners of Benington Lordship, near Stevenage in Hertfordshire, have taken on a renowned garden and made it work for a new generation without straining budgets or needing endless time.
Non Morris tours the Private Gardens at Petworth House, West Sussex , the home of Lord and Lady Egremont, and finds a secluded garden within the landscaped acres that’s been managed with great charm and panache. Photographs by Val Corbett.
The Old Rectory in Litton Cheney, Dorset has four acres of gardens with many and varying elements, all drawn beautifully together with the help of Arne Maynard. Christopher Stocks paid a visit; photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer for Country Life.
As one might expect, Rosemary Alexander’s garden is packed with the lessons learned from a lifetime in horticulture, says Tilly Ware. Photographs by Mimi Connolly.
Tiffany Daneff visits Arundel Castle Gardens, sitting in the shadow of the castle and the cathedral at this beautiful West Sussex town, where head gardener Martin Duncan and his team have worked wonders with their bold and innovative plantings.
Alan Titchmarsh explores the garden of Birkhall, The Prince of Wales's Scottish home on the Balmoral estate.
A beautiful country house is as much about its surroundings as its bricks and mortar, something that the best garden designers in Britain all understand. We've completely revised and updated our list of the finest of them all.
Steven Desmond looks at Gordon Castle Walled Garden at Fochabers in Morayshire, and applauds a ground-breaking restoration that balances productivity with beauty. With photographs by Britt Willoughby-Dyer.
Charles Quest-Ritson visits the best English garden on the French riviera. Photographs by Claire Takacs.
Celebrating the publication of her new book English Gardens, illustrated from the archives of Country Life, Kathryn Bradley-Hole charts the magazine’s extraordinary influence on our gardens.
