Country Life’s top 10 gardens articles of 2024

From the gardens of A-listers and crazed plant hunters to tips on compost, we covered it all in 2024.

‘Within a month, one was eaten by a tiger, one was burned alive, five disappeared and the sole survivor emerged with 7,000 specimens’

Charles Quest-Ritson admitted in April that he never fell for orchids the way he has for roses — but the devotion they inspire is legendary.

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‘My God! What’s he done?… look at it!’: How George Harrison left The Beatles, turned his hand to gardening, and created a masterpiece

The garden at Friar Park in Henley-on-Thames — the Oxfordshire home of the late Beatle George Harrison and his wife Olivia — came under the microscope in September.

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The garden fruit that’s a blend of strawberry, blueberry and kiwi — and it grows beautifully in Britain

The Chilean Guava was Queen Victoria’s favourite fruit — so why don’t we grow more of them, asked Mark Diacono in October.

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Alan Titchmarsh: I’ve been looking for the answer to peat-free compost — and now I think I’ve found it

Alan Titchmarsh delved into the history of compost, and found something that can replace the brilliant but environmentally unsustainable peat-based formulae.

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How to grow lovage — and the reasons why you’d want to bother

As well as its culinary uses, lovage was once taken to treat everything from fever to jaundice, used in bath water and placed in shoes to clean and deodorise.

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The best garden designers and landscape architects in Britain

Our completely revised and updated list of the finest garden designers and landscape architects, all of whom understand that the surroundings of a beautiful country house are as important as its buildings.

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Romancing the stone: How one man has taken the craft of dry-stone walling and turned it into an art

Tom Trouton’s works at The Newt and elsewhere set him apart as a master of one of our oldest heritage crafts, as Annie Gatti detailed.

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Why the RHS decided to rip it up and start again at Wisley

 

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RHS Wisley’s daring reinvention of one of its most famous plantings.

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How to grow broad beans: How to plant them, how to look after them, and the best varieties for your garden

Right at the end of last year, Mark Diacono named the best broad beans for flavour, reliability, tenderness and the beauty of the plant itself.

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‘Prepare to be amazed’ by a cathedral of autumn in the heart of Herefordshire

 

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The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire, an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs garnered over two centuries.

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