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 January

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 is levelling his lawn, reorganising the containers on his terrace, buying bedding plants and coppicing his hazel to make pea-sticks

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

Bask in the Glow • Night falls so swiftly in winter that to really make the most of your garden, outdoor lighting will be needed. From festoon lights strung above a dinner party table to practical solutions for illuminating paths, there’s a whole range of clever lighting solutions out there to bring a glow to your outdoor space. Festoon classic lights in black (20 bulbs), £70. gardentrading.co.uk

BaroquePLEASURES • Step into the glorious time capsule of Ven House in Somerset, to discover a tranquil and superbly preserved example of a garden style that has become vanishingly rare in this country since its late 17th century heyday

The Royal TREATMENT • Thanks to the vision and attention of His Majesty King Charles III, and the efforts of a team of volunteers and staff, the 600-acre gardens at Ayrshire’s Dumfries House have been transformed into a beautiful and productive community asset

A Tale To Tell • Frequently visited by Beatrix Potter and the setting of The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies, Gwaenynog Hall in Denbighshire retains its storybook charm thanks to the efforts of Potter’s great-great niece, Janie Smith, Janie’s daughter Frances – and some very determined rabbits

Set In Aspic • Levens Hall in Cumbria is that rarest of beasts: a formal 17th century garden that didn’t follow fashion through horticulture’s Romantic era, instead retaining its intensely structural, topiary-based layout to offer a tantalising glimpse of the past

What Lies BENEATH • When a heavy hoar frost at Chideock Manor picked out the imprint of an old parterre, Deirdre and Howard Coates made it their mission to uncover the Dorset garden’s past and restore it to its former glory

Fill the Gap • Shrubs are ideal for filling tricky gaps, and now is the time to get them in the ground. Peter Stott, owner of Larch Cottage Nurseries, has ten to recommend

Bare Necessities • Denuded of flower and foliage, plants with interesting stems and trunks stand out in the garden to striking effect once winter arrives. Anglesey Abbey’s David Jordan suggests intriguing choices for colour, texture, structure and shape

EASTERN INFLUENCE • With their vibrant maples, ripples of gravel and bobbles of moss, Japanese gardens are a mindful alternative to more chaotic styles. Liz Potter explores our horticultural debt to this East Asian archipelago

Military Precision • Learn the very particular art of training fruit into lovely shapes with Ian Tocher, manager at Hampton Court Palace, where the walls of a recreated section of kitchen garden are adorned with historic apples, pears, cherries and plums

IN WITH THE NEW • Sandra Lawrence tells the fascinating story of how Ernest Law and Ellen Willmott worked together to create the garden at William Shakespeare’s final home, New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon

THE LIGHT FANTASTIC...