Birkhall: The home of The Prince of Wales on the Balmoral estate
Credit: Clive Nichols/Country Life Picture Library
As HRH The Prince of Wales was locked down at his Scottish home, Birkhall, this piece from our archives about the beautiful Aberdeenshire gardens proved hugely popular.
Arthur Parkinson: The ‘intensely creative’ gardener with ‘spectacular flamboyance’ rising to the top of the gardening world
Credit: Daniel Gould / Country Life
Arthur Parkinson is the fresh-faced social media sensation hailed as the rising star of the gardening world. Caroline Donald went to meet him.
Alan Titchmarsh: ‘I suppose I should be going stir-crazy in self-isolation. The reality has been rather different'
Credit: Val Corbett/Country Life
Not going to the Chelsea Flower Show for the first time in half a century set Alan Titchmarsh musing about lockdown — and how it reminded him why he took to a career in gardening in the first place.
Reddish House: The ‘dream house’ and gardens of Cecil Beaton
Credit: Val Corbett/Country Life
Reddish House came on to the market in the summer, prompting a surge of interest in this fascinating 2019 look at the great Cecil Beaton's former home.
The secrets of the wisteria pergolas in the Private Gardens at Petworth House
Credit: Val Corbett/Country Life
Non Morris paid a visit to the parts of Petworth normally hidden from the visitor's gaze.
Monty Don: 'The point of gardening? It’s to find solace, to be happy, to make beauty, have fun and muck about. How you do it doesn’t matter'
Credit: Derry Moore
Monty Don, gardening writer and broadcaster, spoke to Country Life’s Tiffany Daneff about dogs with film presence and the lockdown recording process.
How to master the fine art of pottering
Credit: Alamy
The joys of doing things slowly are something Alan Titchmarsh discovered in the spring.
10 of the best secret gardens in Britain — and how you can visit them
Credit: Wyndcliffe Court
Inspired by a recent adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, Juliet Roberts selected a few of her favourite secret gardens.
Moor Wood, ‘one of midsummer’s most beautiful and romantic gardens in England’
Credit: Britt Willoughby Dyer for the Country Life Picture Library
Charles Quest-Ritson visited the National Collection of rambling roses, which showed these most romantic of plants at their very finest.
The centuries-old Italian gardens that evoke the romance of Romeo and Juliet
Credit: Alex Ramsay
Jenny Condie took a look at Giardino Giusti in Verona and Villa Fracanzan Piovene near Vicenza.
Charles Quest-Ritson: What English country gardeners can learn from their German counterparts
Charles Quest-Ritson has spent years making trips to Germany to gather ideas and new plants — but is puzzled that nobody
Credit: Getty Images
Charles Quest-Ritson: Why every gardener in Britain should be growing philadelphus
Charles Quest-Ritson's list of flowers that every garden should own includes the usual names — rose, daffodil, clematis. But he'd also
The best honeysuckle to grow in your garden – especially if they’re gifts from now-departed friends
Charles Quest-Ritson extols the virtues of delightful honeysuckle.
Rage against the buttercups: How to wage war on the weeds in your garden
Charles Quest-Ritson loves plants — but in his garden, he only wants the ones he chooses.
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Two quick and easy seasonal asparagus recipes to try this Easter WeekendAsparagus has royal roots — it was once a favourite of Madame de Pompadour.
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Sip tea and laugh at your neighbours in this seaside Norfolk home with a watchtowerOn Cliff Hill in Gorleston, one home is taller than all the others. It could be yours.
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The man who trekked Bhutan, Mongolia, Japan, Tasmania and New Zealand to bring the world's greatest magnolias back to KentMagnolias don't get any more magnificent than the examples in the garden at White House Farm in Kent, home of Maurice Foster. Many of them were collected as seed in the wild — and they are only one aspect of his enthralling garden.
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The 'breathtakingly magnificent' English country gardens laid out on the Amalfi Coast, and the story of how they got thereKirsty Fergusson follows the Grand Tour to Campania in Italy, where the English combined their knowledge and love of plants with the rugged landscape to create gardens of extraordinary beauty.
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Have your say in the Historic Houses Garden of the Year Awards 2025 -
Evenley Wood Garden: 'I didn't know a daffodil from a daisy! But being middle-aged, ignorant and obstinate, I persisted'When Nicola Taylor took on her plantsman father’s flower-filled woodland, she knew more about horses than trees, but, as Tiffany Daneff discovers, that hasn’t stopped her from making a great success of the garden. Photographs by Clive Nichols.
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An expert guide to growing plants from seedAll you need to grow your own plants from seed is a pot, some compost, water and a sheltered place.
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The best rhododendron and azalea gardens in BritainIt's the time of year when rhododendrons, azaleas, magnolias and many more spring favourites are starting to light up the gardens of the nation. Here are the best places to go to enjoy them at their finest.
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Great Comp: The blissful garden flooded with rhododendrons and azaleas that's just beyond the M25Each spring, Great Comp Garden — just outside the M25, near Sevenoaks — erupts into bloom, with swathes of magnolias, azaleas and rhododendrons. Charles Quest-Ritson looks at what has become one of the finest gardens to visit in Kent.
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'I'm the expert who wrote the RHS's guide to roses — here's why pruning them right now is almost certainly a terrible mistake'More roses die from over-pruning than any other cause so what’s the reasoning underpinning this horticultural habit? Charles Quest-Ritson, the garden expert who wrote the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses, takes a closer look.
