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The garden at Cogshall Grange: 'A modern work of art, combining shapeliness and serenity'
Layers of fresh new foliage — lime-green hornbeams underplanted with bronze and copper-leaved perennials — are set off with a brilliant selection of tulips in the garden at Cogshall Grange. Kathryn Bradley-Hole paid a visit; photography by Clive Nichols.
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'There was the land, the money and the desire to show off both': The incomparable skill and immaculate timing of Capability Brown
Tiffany Daneff pays tribute to Lancelot 'Capability' Brown, the great landscape gardener who re-shaped huge swathes of Britain.
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Penns in the Rocks: The East Sussex garden created by Vita Sackville-West, with a little help from the huge boulders that stood here when dinosaurs walked the earth
It’s not only the pre-historic rocks that set apart the garden of Penns in the Rocks, near Tunbridge Wells, says George Plumptre. It's the fact that the layout was created by two horticultural legends: Vita Sackville-West and Lanning Roper. Photography by Jason Ingram.
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William Robinson, the visionary gardener 150 years ahead of his time
A century and a half before the word 'rewilding' entered the gardening lexicon, a pioneering gardener named William Robinson was advocating for a more natural approach to our green spaces. Tiffany Daneff examines his legacy, and his home at Gravetye Manor.
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The railway station gardens that bring a touch of bucolic bliss to an ordinary train ride
Gently tended by devoted staff, the railway station garden has become a rural idyll in its own right, says Andrew Martin.
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Country Life's top 10 garden stories of 2025, from Alan Titchmarsh's hardy annuals to David Beckham's Cotswolds paradise
We look back at the most-read architecture stories on the Country Life website in 2025.
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Helmingham Hall: The ancient garden at a medieval hall where the drawbridge is still pulled up every night
Half a millennium of careful tending at Helmingham Hall in Suffolk — home of Ed and Sophie Tollemache — has given this garden a rare magic, most noticeable in the depths of winter. Tilly Ware paid a visit; photography by Clive Nichols.
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When it comes to making the perfect garden tool, the past has all the answers
Mary Keen visits Garden & Wood, the mecca for dedicated gardeners who prefer using tools made in the 1940s
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'I bought it without telling Victoria. She didn’t want another project... I sat her down, gave her a vodka and tonic and told her what I’d done': David Beckham tells Alan Titchmarsh about his Cotswolds home and garden
On an open and windswept tract of land in Oxfordshire, where once stood some derelict barns and a lone maple tree, our guest editor Sir David Beckham has created a haven for his family and his honeybees. Photographs by Clive Nichols and Millie Pilkington.
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'You could walk round it every day and always notice something new': A private tour of the garden of multiple Chelsea gold medallist John Massey
Inspired by his friends Christopher Lloyd and Princess Greta Sturdza, nurseryman and plant breeder John Massey has made a garden in Worcestershire that never ceases to delight, writes Charles Quest-Ritson. Photographs by Clive Nichols
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The arboretum that's been 30 years in the making by a dedicated, passionate family who are dreaming of what it could be in 3,000 years' time
Keen collectors sooner or later find their way to the outstanding trees and shrubs at Bluebell Arboretum in Derbyshire, writes Charles Quest-Ritson. It’s a wonderful sight at this time of year.
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'We want everyone to have a magical time': Life at the smartest flower farm in the Cotswolds
Mary Keen visits the organically run Chippy Flower Farm in Oxfordshire, set up five years ago and already a great success locally — especially its pick-your-own area. Photographs by Jonathan Buckley.
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Sophie Conran's garden at Salthrop Manor, and its journey from bare field to Cotswold paradise
The walled garden at Salthrop Manor — home of Sophie Conran — hums with life and colour. It’s hard to believe that this was merely a field not so long ago, as Tiffany Daneff explains; photography by Ngoc Minh Ngo for Country Life.
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The best flower borders in Britain, and how they work their magic
We may have invented the flower border, but planting them remains one of the trickiest things to get right. Charles Quest-Ritson looks at the secrets behind the very best.
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Inverewe: The making of 'The Oasis of the North' in a wind-battered corner of north-west Scotland
Innovative 21st-century composting and mulching techniques combined with a 19th-century shelterbelt ensure that the famous gardens of Inverewe in Wester Ross continue to thrive. Caroline Donald explains more; photographs by Andrea Jones.
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Ballynure House: The magical estate that transformed its bramble-covered historic garden into a pollinator paradise
Where brambles once engulfed the historic gardens at Ballynure House in Co Wicklow, Ireland — home of Clare Reid Scott — colourful flower borders now hum with pollinators. Photographs by Jonathan Hession.
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‘I was rather excited, not remotely daunted... With hindsight, I should have been': The 25-year creation of the gardens of Glenarm Castle
Pay a visit to the gardens at Glenarm Castle in Co Antrim — home of Randal and Aurora McDonnell — is hard to credit that nearly all of the present garden was made this century, marvels Kathryn Bradley-Hole. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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'Knoll offers a masterclass in the adaptability of grass': The Dorset garden that went from tourist attraction to specialist nursery
Tilly Ware visits Knoll Gardens in Dorset, which offers a masterclass in grasses and how to make your garden stay beautiful for longer.
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'Other people would have given up and turfed half of it over': The couple who turned 'the ugliest house with the nicest view' into a Somerset treasure
With many viewpoints and changes of level, Grove Ley in Somerton, Somerset — home of Dr and Mrs Michael Horder — was not an easy site on which to make a garden. But key to its success, writes Caroline Donald, has been enlarging the pond and creating long beds full of robust perennials and grasses. Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer.
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A lush, 'tropical' garden in Devon where bananas and ginger grow happily alongside the staples of an English country garden
Steep inclines and rocky outcrops are nothing to the owners of this coastal garden, which is filled with plants-many from the southern hemisphere-that thrive in such conditions, finds Caroline Donald.
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The Hollywood garden designers who turned their hand to a magical corner of Somerset
Caisson House's fifteen abandoned locks were part of the draw for Amanda and Phil Honey, who have created this astonishing garden in the grounds of the former headquarters of the Somersetshire Coal Canal Company just outside Bath. Caroline Donald discovers more; photography by Jason Ingram.
