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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Welcome

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

Things to Do • As the garden turns green, Jane Moore relishes – and then relishes removing – burgeoning weeds, deadheads bulbs and protects her more tender plants

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

Self Contained • Each pot in a container garden presents an opportunity. It’s a miniature theatrical scene where height, colour and texture combine in a curated statement. The constraints of a container compel a gardener to think creatively, but the foundations are always the same: a solid pot, a handy trowel and rich compost. Clayton grande terracotta plant pot, £250. Tel: 01276 535641; gardenesque.com

Serenity NOW • Behind ancient walls, sheltered from the roar of the M25, Dunsborough Park in Surrey is a haven of historic calm where formal gardens, parterres and meadows are packed with silken tulips, chosen by Baroness Sweerts de Landas Wyborgh

Form & FLOURISH • An accomplished Arne Maynard design for the garden of The Old Rectory in East Sussex has met the owners’ desire for decadent romance and bohemian charm, while providing a unifying structure thanks to well thought out topiary and clever landscaping decisions

Tales of the UNEXPECTED • At Tomandroighne, geologist Ruth Howell has carved sinuous paths and dry-stone terraces from a precipitous Perthshire hillside to create surprises at every turn

Play TIME • Spring is when the fun begins at Cerney House as tulips romp through the four growing spaces, injecting energy, movement, mischief and splashes of bold colour throughout this otherwise timelessly romantic Cotswold garden

Little ITALY • The visionary creator of Portmeirion, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis brought a touch of the Mediterranean to his own garden at Plas Brondanw in the Gwynedd countryside, where classic statuary and mountain peaks are framed by scintillating topiary shapes in a quirky fantasia of a garden

Brick by Brick • Sue Martin’s Kent garden at 1 Brickwall Cottages reflects a lifetime of learning, its piecemeal development giving it a charmingly informal cottage-garden feel

Constant Evolution • With a wide gene pool to breed from, hellebores offer astonishing diversity. Val Bourne visits John Massey’s Ashwood Nurseries in Kingswinford to admire old favourites and exciting introductions

How To Grow More Flowers • In her new book, A Year of Cut Flowers, Sarah Raven recommends two strategies for getting the most out of your flower patch this year

Bushy Tales • With a specialist interest in trees and shrubs, Borde Hill’s new head gardener Mark Bobin is well placed to recommend his ten top shrubs for early flowers

Lazy Lawns • Boost the pleasure and lessen the load with easy lawn-care tips that will free you up to sit back and enjoy your garden in all its gorgeous green glory

BRIGHT SPARKS • Dazzling us with their glorious colour, exciting forms and long-lasting displays, summer-flowering bulbs have it all. Four experts suggest some brilliant candidates to order and plant this spring for vibrant blooms all summer long

GOOD to...