The English Garden

Enjoy over 60 beautiful gardens a year with The English Garden. Every issue features country, city, cottage and coastal gardens, with advice on how to recreate them. Be inspired by articles written by the country's top garden designers and discover the best plant varieties for your garden, chosen by expert nurserymen and plantspeople.

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The English Garden

This Month • Our guide to plants, people, gardens and events, tasks and shopping in April

People to Meet • Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture

Out & About • Unmissable events, news and the very best gardens to visit this month

Jim’s Garden Diary • This month, Jim Cable plans colour palettes for seasonal planting, sows half-hardy annuals and starts the highly selective process of weeding

Beautiful & Useful • New plants, books, tools and creative designs, plus shopping inspiration

Back to Nature • Silken poppies springing up from disturbed ground, swathes of bluebells carpeting woodland floors and cornflowers studding meadows: these abundant buds and blooms are beautifully captured on Sophie Allport’s wildflower-inspired apron, perfect for busy baking days. Poppy meadow adult apron, £24. Tel: 01778 560256; sophieallport.com

A VISUAL FEAST • At Bucklers Farmhouse in Essex, Ann Bartleet has overcome challenging conditions to create an enchanting country garden, uniting form, colour and wildlife for a true sensory delight

Once & FUTURE • Over a century, Ramster in Surrey has passed through four generations of the same family. Successive incumbents have enriched its layout, planting and even the soil, resulting in a forward-looking garden steeped in history

A Hard Act to Follow • Most famous for its exceptional limestone Rock Garden, created at the turn of the last century, the grounds of Sizergh Castle in Cumbria are now in the care of head gardener Susan Rowley, who is marching them into the future

A Touch of WILDNESS • The erstwhile home of William Robinson, grand Gravetye Manor overlooks gardens that stay true to the pioneering writer’s ethos, drawing inspiration from Nature herself

Treasure TROVE • Euan Cox’s plant-hunting expedition to Burma in 1919 kickstarted one family’s fascination for the rare and the new. Over a century later, these amassed riches are still being added to at Glendoick Gardens near Perth, with a particular focus on woodland specialities

VALUE JUDGEMENTS • Whether you’re creating a new garden from scratch or revamping an established space, it pays to know when to spend money and when to cut back. Here, experienced designers explain how to get the best value from any budget

Delectable Duos • At this time of year, tulips are star performers. Here, Cambridge University Botanic Garden’s Sally Petitt, suggests subtle support acts for perfect pairings

High Society • Meet the demure débutantes from those groups of clematis that, supported by their hosts, put on an enchanting display of subtle blooms in spring, their delicate ethereal beauty far removed from that of their blowsy later-season counterparts

Let the Carnival BEGIN • Offering a jolly carousel of colour over the coming months, tulips inspire bold and beautifully styled settings for garden parties, their vibrant tones complementing the fresh greenery of spring. Just mix in patterned textiles and vintage vases to celebrate tulip season in all its brilliant glory

Making the Cut • In her new book, The Cut Flower Sourcebook: Exceptional Perennials and Woody Plants for Cutting, Rachel Siegfried shares techniques, tips and top plant selections for growing your own vase displays

Notes from PERCH HILL • In the first of four extracts adapted from her new book, A...