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Urchfont Manor, Wiltshire: From local council facility to 'inspired contemporary creation'
The restoration of Urchfont Manor and its gardens has resulted in an exceptional creation that unites the formal with the informal in a modern garden that nods to the past. Even better, it's now joined the National Garden Scheme; George Plumptre, chief executive of the NGS, takes a closer look, with photographs by Claire Takacs.
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The best new gardens opening to the public in 2021 under the National Garden Scheme
The NGS was hit by Covid-19 last summer, but the signs suggest that the 2021 National Garden Scheme openings should go ahead as usual. Annunciata Elwes takes a look at some of the highlights.
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The gardens of Armadale Castle: Clan Donald's crumbling, magnificent retreat tucked into a corner of the Isle of Skye
Caroline Donald visits the ancestral home of Clan Donald, Armadale Castle on the Isle of Skye, where the gardens are once again in safe hands and the historic trees will be given a boost with the planting of a new arboretum of endangered conifers. Photographs by Claire Takacs.
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Pettifers: The breathtaking Oxfordshire garden born from the impeccable instincts of Gina Price
An Oxfordshire garden famous for its high summer and autumn borders sparkles with just as much interest and invention earlier in the year. Tiffany Daneff visits Pettifers. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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Weirs Barn: A Hampshire garden where Robert Weir Schultz's Arts-and-Crafts vision came back to life
In the spirit of its founding fathers, the Arts-and-Crafts design of Weirs Barn, Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, has been brilliantly brought back to life as a family garden. Photographs by Mimi Connolly.
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Nevill Holt, Leicestershire: 'After 700 years of ups and downs, finally entering its prime'
The reimagined gardens at Nevill Holt, Leicestershire, have stepped into the limelight to offer a powerful overture to the summer opera festival, explains Kendra Wilson. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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The Dower House Garden at Morville: Where meticulous historical research meets painstaking gardening
The historic Dower House Garden at Morville, Shropshire, has been sensitively re-created by its owner, finds Non Morris. Photographs by Val Corbett for Country Life.
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Kylemore Abbey Gardens: An Irish garden that 'is one of earth's wonders'
Thanks to the determination of the resident community of Benedictine nuns, the eight-acre garden at Kylemore Abbey Gardens in Connemara, Ireland, has been restored. Once lockdown lifts, visitors can once again enjoy a Victorian survival in an extraordinary setting. Mary Hackett paid a visit; photographs by Zara Napier.
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Winkworth Arboretum, the 'Museum of Trees' that celebrates the art of planting for autumn colour
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.
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10 of the best secret gardens in Britain — and how you can visit them
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.
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Iford Manor: How Harold Peto created a Wiltshire masterpiece that 'that turns the ordinary into the extraordinary'
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.
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Painswick Rococo Garden: Hidden pavilions and romantic copses, watched over by the god of woodland revels
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.
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Bere Mill: The riverside gardens in Hampshire created in as natural and as sensitive a way as possible
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.
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The Gardens of Monteviot, a garden where magic lingers for future generations
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.
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Parceval Hall: Tucked away in a corner of the Yorkshire Dales, a great garden that's perfectly restored
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.
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The national collection of rambling roses at Moor Wood, 'one of midsummer’s most beautiful and romantic gardens in England'
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.
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Inside the incredible Private Gardens at Petworth House, a space with 'a sense of privacy and intimacy' at one of Britain's great houses
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.
