When we buy a plant, there’s always the temptation to make an impulse purchase. Yet the first question that should pop into a gardener’s head is ‘will it actually thrive in my garden?’

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In a climate as varied as the British Isles, one of the main factors used to work this out is whether it can survive the winter outdoors unaided – what we call ‘hardiness’.

Throughout Gardens Illustrated there are references to a plant’s hardiness described using two separate scales: one from the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the other from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Both are based on accumulated experience of a plant’s ability to endure cold conditions, or in the UK, the ability to withstand changeable periods of freezing and relatively mild, wet weather. Plants adapt to tolerate cold to varying degrees. Some will take a light frost (temperatures just below freezing) for a couple of hours, others cope with long periods of freezing to remarkably low temperatures.

Plant hardiness zones USA

The USDA scale was developed in the 1960s for North America but it is now widely used in other countries around the world. It’s based on minimum average temperatures in a range of zones – as shown in the two illustrations – which increase in steps of 10°F. The US zones have been mapped in remarkable detail and plants can be assigned a rating according to the coldest zone in which they can grow or, as we have done here, a range of zones in which the plant is known to grow. These range from 1 (very hardy) to 13 (least hardy), with each divided into two 5°F subzones ‘a’ and ‘b’. This USDA system has been applied to the UK and Europe and gardeners here can use the mapped zones as a general guide.

Plant hardiness zones UK

The RHS scale, introduced in 2012, is a more descriptive system of hardiness ratings. Like the USDA system, it uses a scale (this time in 5°C steps) from H1 to H7, based on minimum winter temperatures. However, it has two major differences. The first is that it runs in the opposite direction to the USDA system – 1 is very tender, 7 is very hardy. It also offers a description for the garden conditions to help reflect the variable nature of UK winters. These are summarised in the scale below, but you can find more detailed descriptions on the RHS website. The most tender rating, H1, has been subdivided into three categories A, B and C.

Perhaps, though, the more important difference is that the RHS scale is a rating of the plant’s hardiness and hasn’t been translated into mapped zones for the UK.

All rating given in the magazine are accurate to the best of our knowledge. Not every plant has been given a rating by the RHS, but where none is available our contributors will sometimes rate the plant based on their own trials. USDA scales are taken from the website of the Missouri Botanical Garden  or based on growers’ experiences in the USA. Both are included as a guide only to help you predict what you should be able to grow in your garden.

USDA and RHS scale (US and UK systems)

A little bit more on microclimate

For those keen to grow tender plants, a south-facing aspect is desirable to maximise exposure to the sun’s heat. Likewise, shelter is critical, either to protect plants from cold winds or from cold air flowing down hillsides.

Gardeners will talk about frost pockets or frost hollows. These are where cold air drains off exposed slopes, as cold air is heavier than warm air, and collects in valleys or in sheltered areas where it cannot escape. This leads to cooler overnight temperatures and more frosts.

Where possible, lay out your garden to avoid slowing or trapping cold as it filters down slopes. Hedges, fences and walls can be strategically placed to protect plants or to provide sheltered nooks where you can grow plants that would not flourish in the open. Walls provide an additional benefit because they absorb heat during the day, which they then give off again at night. Cleverly, this keeps the surrounding air several degrees warmer, which can make all the difference to your plants on a frosty day.

Bear in mind, though, that structures such as walls, fences and hedges also cast shadow. This can mean that after an overnight frost, even though the daytime temperature rises above freezing, the ground remains frozen when in permanent shade.

Useful Information

RHS hardiness ratings rhs.org.uk
USDA hardiness maps planthardiness.ars.usda.gov

What does it mean to fertilise the soil? There is usually an implied understanding that chemical nutrients are to be added, in order to feed plants better. As a result, one ends up focusing on the nutrient needs of particular plants. An alternative approach is to consider soil as a living organism that has the ability, when well fed itself, to provide conditions of fertility. All plants can then thrive, as long as climate and pH are also correct. This approach benefits from knowledge of soil biology and the factors that can promote extra life in the soil. I suggest that soils with an abundance of fungi, bacteria, nematodes, worms, beetles and so forth have the ability to nourish plants with all they need, and to do so in a healthier way than when synthetic nutrients are supplied. In this article I offer a few thoughts on what makes soil fertile, in the biological sense, leading to healthier growth and less need for synthetic chemicals in the garden.

What is soil?

Instead of seeing soil as a ‘nutrient store’ or ‘bank balance’ of plant food, we might imagine it as a living organism which is respiring and full of life – the skin of our Earth. The next step is to consider how to enhance the lives of all those soil organisms that have the ability both to give a healthy structure to soil, and to make nutrients available to plant roots. Two simple ways of doing this are by keeping a mulch of organic matter on the surface, and by avoiding any unnecessary cultivation. Scientists such as Dr Elaine Ingham have revealed much about soils’ food chain, with invisible bacteria at the bottom and frogs, mice, birds and so on at the top (see below and also www.soilfoodweb.com). At the top of this chain is mankind, which has the ability to either destroy or encourage all the inhabitants underneath.

Maintaining soil health

A first step is to avoid regular use of synthetic chemicals that irritate or even destroy many soil inhabitants. And be extremely careful in their use – for instance, it’s better to use just two or three slug pellets under something like a piece of wood, then retrieve and bin the poisoned slugs. A second step is to avoid cultivating soil as far as possible. Thirdly, most positively, we can increase soil life by adding organic matter to the surface, keeping the most finely decomposed compost for plots where vegetables are grown. Adopting all three of these practices together is self-reinforcing. Not digging soil, for example, will lead to a more healthy soil population and more vibrant plants. Your plants then require less chemical assistance to keep disease at bay, especially when they are well adapted to your type of soil, location and climate.

Buying compost and manure

Home-made compost can be supplemented with bought-in compost or manure. Black and crumbly green waste compost and mushroom compost are often available at reasonable prices, say £20 a tonne, but are not rich in nutrients. Animal manure can often be had for the cost of delivery alone and contains a lot of goodness, but is often lumpy and harder to spread evenly. Horse manure is better for heavy soils and cow manure for lighter soils. Many gardens in the past grew fine plants in soil improved with horse manure.

The soil food chain

There’s an incredible dynamism and interlinkage to the working parts of our soil. Impairment of any one group of organisms has bad effects on the others. We need them all.

1. Bacteria are vital to the planet’s health.
   There may be half a million in a teaspoon of healthy soil, mostly helping to decompose organic matter. When bacteria die, the nutrients they recycle become available to plants.
2. Fungi, unlike bacteria, can travel by increasing in length, helping to aerate soil and move nutrients around. Plant roots use mycorrhizal fungi to fetch and unlock minerals, especially phosphorus.
3. Protozoa include amoebae, ciliates and flagellates, which work with and, mostly, live off bacteria. Protozoa may supply as much as three quarters of plants’ nitrogen requirements.
4. Nematodes, or roundworms, are prolific and mostly beneficial, consuming everything below them in the chain, and some above, such as slugs. Above all, nematodes help to mineralise nitrogen.
5. Arthropods include mites, spiders, beetles, springtails (‘soil fleas’) and millipedes, whose main role is to shred organic matter such as leaves, speeding their decomposition.
6. Earthworms make casts up to 50 per cent higher in organic matter than surrounding soil. Their digestive enzymes make nutrients more available to plants. They can open up compacted soils and increase soils’ water-holding capacity.
7. Gastropods are slugs and snails, who play a vital role despite occasionally devastating our plants. Most gastropods live below the surface and convert organic waste to a more decomposed form. Their excretions help bind soil particles together.

Further reading
Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis, revised edition, Timber Press, 2010.

Here we’ve rounded up a selection of the best climbing plants, perfect for your garden. We’ve divided the list into climbers for walls, borders and vigorous examples.

Climbing plants, including favourites such as honeysuckle and jasmine, all share the successful strategy of relying on the support of other plants or objects to reach the sunlight. This obviates the need to invest much in producing supportive tissue, such as the wood in trees, and means climbing plants aren’t subject to the usual restraints on growth.

Here are the best climbing plants

How to choose a climbing plant

A climbing plant can be a wonderful addition to your garden planting, and there are plenty more out there to choose from than just the regular honeysuckle or clematis or passion flower. The way to choose your climbing plant depends a lot on the space you have and what you want your plant to be used for. Here are some tips on how to choose the best climbing plant:

• What do you want it to grow up? If you’re using your climbing plant as a screen, then you will want a vigorous climber that provides good, evergreen coverage, with hopefully flowering bonuses at some point too. If it’s something you’ll be looking out onto, make sure you pick a climber you love. They tend to dominate wherever they are.

• Do you have the right supports? A climber needs the right support, so make sure you invest in the correct plant support, or your wall, trellis or even tree is suitable for the particular climber.
• Do you have time to look after it? Lots of climbers are fussy and lots of climbers need work to prune it at the right point in the year. If you’re looking for something that you can chop once a year and then leave to do it’s own thing, consider a Clematis ‘francis rivis’ or Hedera algeriensis ‘Gloire de Marengo’.

Luxuriant growth brings its own problems – vigour must be matched carefully to the appropriate space, and abundance restrained where necessary. If you need some climbing supports, we have rounded up our favourites,  and don’t miss our guide to pruning climbing plants like wisteria.

The best climbing plants for your garden in 2023

Climbing plants with flowers

Rhodochiton atrosanguineus

This ‘purple bell flower’ produces beautiful flowers along the length of its twining stems, and looks effective growing along horizontal twigs or branches. This climbing plant can be sown late April, or August and overwintered frost free. 2.5m AGM. RHS H2.

Jasminum nudiflorum

© Jason Ingram

This jasmine can be persuaded to adopt the semblance of a climber by training and cutting back immediately after flowering. If allowed some freedom, this winter jasmine will flower abundantly in winter and early spring. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 6a-9b.

Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’

A climbing plant that’s Perennial in a Mediterranean climate, it can achieve sufficient bulk here to make its presence felt from a late April sowing, without causing too much of a nuisance. Will flower until frost cuts it down. 3m. AGM. RHS H1c.

Ipomoea lobata

An intriguing member of the bindweed family, with flowers that are simultaneously an intense orange and yellow in the early bud stage, maturing to cream. Sow Spanish flag in late April and plant after all danger of frost. 3m.

Bomarea multiflora

Twining herbaceous climber, a relative of Alstroemeria, that arises from a tuber. The trailing lily may come through the winter protected by a thick mulch. Something this gorgeous deserves some effort. 6m. AGM. USDA 10a-11.

Lonicera x tellmanniana

A climbing honeysuckle lacking scent, but abundant, vivid-orange flowers offer excitement enough. Tolerates shade and may be pruned by removing flowered growth annually. 4.7m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 7b-10b. Don’t miss our plant profile for more honeysuckle suggestions.

Solanum laxum ‘Album’

A twining climber with abundant clusters of flowers that look fragile and fresh right up to the first frosts. Trim lateral branches to around 15cm in winter. On the tender side, so site carefully. 6m. AGM.

Evergreen climbing plants

Pileostegia viburnoides

Self-clinging, evergreen climbing plant thats shade tolerant with frothy white flowers in late summer. This climbing hydrangea has a slow rate of growth, but this makes it less work to restrain once established. 6m. USDA 8a-10b.

Climbing plants for shade

Clematis ‘Frances Rivis’

A good early flowering clematis with nodding flowers of great charm in spring. Works well in partial, deciduous shade as part of a woodland scheme. Prune lightly after flowering, if at all. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 4b-9a.

Lapageria rosea

Achingly beautiful climber, but requires shade, shelter, good drainage (yet plentiful summer moisture), is slow to establish and an apparently ambrosial beacon for slugs. 7m. AGM. RHS H3, USDA 9b-11.

Parthenocissus henryana

Native to China, this Virginia climbing plant has tastefully variegated leaves that turn vibrant shades of red in the autumn. It self-clings and will tolerate the shade of a north-facing wall. 4.7m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 6a-9b.

Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris

A climbing plant that’s deciduous, but in season it completely clothes its space with large, green leaves and white, lace-cap inflorescences. Another climbing hydrangea that will cover a shady wall fast. 12m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 4a-7b.

Schizophragma integrifolium

• Buy now from Thompson & Morgan (£35.99)

Similar to Hydrangea anomala, although you will need more patience. This climbing hyrdrangea is distinguished  by the shape and size of the sterile florets that encircle the inflorescence. 6m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 7a-10b.

Low maintenance climbing plants

Hedera algeriensis ‘Gloire de Marengo’

Good for lighting up dark walls without any fuss. A vigorous, self-clinging, adaptable variegated ivy climbing plant, with smart, glossy leaves tinged with white. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 7a-10b.

Ipomoea coccinea

Delicate in growth with striking scarlet flowers, this true annual is rarely seen and deserves to be grown more frequently. A climbing plant that’s straightforward from seed sown in late April and then planted out after all risk of frost is over. 6m.

Clematis ‘Prince Charles’

A prolific blue-flowered clematis, similar to Sissinghurst’s ‘Perle d’Azur’ but with slightly smaller flowers and improved resistance to powdery mildew. Cut back hard in spring and watch it go. 2.4m. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 4a-8b. Here’s our profile on clematis montana. 

Cobaea scandens

The most vigorous of all annual climbers, and perennial in a frost-free climate. In one year, from seed, the ‘cup and saucer vine’ can cover an astonishing area with bell-shaped flowers from late summer to first frosts. 1.8m. AGM. RHS H2, USDA 9a-10b.

Fragrant climbing plants

Trachelospermum jasminoides

The scent of ‘false jasmine’ is not that similar to true jasmine, but equally powerful. The star jasmine is quite hardy, although the similar Trachelospermum asiaticum is said to be hardier. A climbing plant that’s best on a sunny wall. 12m. AGM. RHS H4, USDA 8a-11.

Rosa ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’

Vigorous rambling rose, with delicate flowers. Perfect for hoisting up a large tree. Will take time to establish itself, but once it does you will be rewarded with grace, scent and a profusion of flowers. 9m. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 4a-9b.

Fast growing climbing plants

Clematis ‘Alba Luxurians’

One of the most vigorous of the viticella cultivars. Cut back hard every spring, you’ll be amazed at the coverage you get over the course of one season. This climber flowers profusely July to September. 3.6m. USDA 3a-9b.

Read our expert guide to pruning clematis.

Rosa ‘Wedding Day’

The scrambling rose flowers have the agreeable quality of changing colour as they mature, from pale primrose to almost white. The different stages appear side by side in each many-headed inflorescence. 9m. USDA 7a-9b.

Clematis ‘Bill MacKenzie’

A tough, vigorous, climbing clematis, offering both striking flowers and seedheads over a long period. It’s tolerant of drought and extreme cold, but does best in full sun. 6m. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 5b-9b.

Lonicera periclymenum ‘Serotina’

Honeysuckle, with vivid colouring and a long flowering season. A vigorous and at times untidy grower; it can be kept within bounds by carefully removing flowered shoots in winter. 6m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.

Rosa ‘Chevy Chase’

A climbing rose with a touch of opulence. The flowers are small double and crimson, with tightly clustered petals. Great in combination with the dark, glossy leaves of a mature holly, which makes a suitable host. 7m. USDA 5a-9b.

Rosa ‘The Garland’

Trained to cover an archway, this climbing rose has always been the most arresting sight in the garden where I’ve been working for the past four years. Now it’s happily rambling on to a neighbouring yew tree. 7m.

Wisteria floribunda ‘Alba’

Often grown in spur-pruned tiers on a wall, although if you allow it the freedom to romp into trees, this climbing plant will seek out the sunshine to flower well, and assume something of its natural character. 12m. USDA 5a-10b.

Vitis coignetiae

A vine in the more precise sense of the word: a close relative of the grape. This climber is grown for its large leaves, which turn spectacular colours in autumn. A wonderful way to enliven evergreen trees. 12m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.

Clematis montana var. grandiflora

Well known for its extraordinary vigour, which makes it difficult to contain. This climbing plant’s stemmy growth can look rather untidy, especially in the winter. All will be forgiven when it flowers. 12m. AGM. RHS H4, USDA 6a-9b.

Climbing plants are a great addition to any garden as they not only provide aesthetic appeal but also offer practical benefits such as shade and privacy. With a wide range of varieties to choose from, gardeners have the opportunity to experiment with different climbers to suit their taste and requirements. Whether you have a small balcony or a large garden, there is a climbing plant that can transform your outdoor space. By selecting the right type of climbing plant and providing the right conditions for it to grow, you can create a beautiful and functional garden that is a joy to be in. So why not take the leap and add a climbing plant to your garden today!

If you’re in need of climbing supports for your climbing plants, we have rounded up the best climbing supports for 2023. Or here’s our piece on how to make your own plant supports. 

There are many incredible women who have, and are still dominating the world of gardening, so for International Women’s Day we’ve listed some of the key, female garden designers in British history that still influence the way we garden today, alongside some of the top women garden designers who are currently succeeding in the industry. Read our piece on the key dates of women in gardening. 

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19th century female gardeners

From the middle of the 19th century, it is largely women who have shaped the way we think about gardens.

Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)

No garden designer has had more enduring influence on the British garden: for a century her painterly way of grouping plants in large, informal masses of colour; her insistence on harmony and rhythm; and her embrace of formal structure softened with loose, richly textured planting, has been the sine qua non of the successful British garden. Gardens were considered a series of carefully made pictures; and only really in the last decade has colour been supplanted as the guiding principle of design.

Margery Fish (1892-1969)

Our current fascination for perennials, and especially our continuing love-affair with the cottage garden, can be traced back to Margery Fish, whose approachable, funny and commonsensical books championed a more simple and informal planting style. She was an early fan of silver foliage, and introduced the concept of ground cover as a labour-saving device. Read more about her snowdrop collection at East Lambrook Manor. 

Brenda Colvin (1897-1981)

In 1947, Brenda published Land and Landscape – an influential work on landscape in the 20th century, reflecting her commitment to an ecological approach and to simple planting. While loving her own garden, Little Peacocks, Brenda famously rejected private garden design as too subject to the whims and fancies of owners, turning to more durable projects such as power stations, reservoirs and town planning.

Norah Lindsay (1866-1948)

A major influence in the interwar years, Norah developed a rich, romantic, ‘untidy’ style that encouraged serendipity and self-seeding, wonderfully realised at her garden at Sutton Courtenay. In the 1920s, penniless but well connected, she began a glittering career as a High Society garden designer. Today she is best known for her long collaboration with Lawrence Johnston at Hidcote.

Phyllis Reiss (1886-1961)

When Phyllis Reiss moved to Tintinhull in 1933, she set about creating a garden of rooms within the Hamstone walls: tranquil enclosures unified by repeated plantings of silver, bronze and burgundy foliage and rhythmic topiary. Her unfussy elegance and year-round planting was to influence designers from Lanning Roper to Sylvia Crowe, and not least her successor at Tintinhull, Penelope Hobhouse.

Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962)

Vita would have insisted it was her husband, Harold Nicolson, who was the designer at now iconic Sissinghurst Castle – certainly in terms of its ground plan of rooms. But her exuberant, multi-layered planting style and her colour-themed gardens, especially her celebrated White Garden, have probably spawned more imitators in more countries than any designer, before or since.

Sylvia Crowe (1901-1997)

Sylvia Crowe was the pre-eminent landscape architect in post-war Britain and the author of a host of standard texts on landscaping, design and forestry. Her Garden Design (1958) is cited by many designers as a seminal text. Sylvia worked on Harlow and Basildon new towns, created Rutland Water, merged hated power stations and commercial forestry into the landscape – but never entirely abandoned gardens.

Rosemary Verey (1918-2001)

Rosemary came to epitomise Country House style, at its zenith in the 1980s, which she marketed with particular success in USA – all yew hedges, knots, fulsome pastel borders, discreet classical statuary and immaculate maintenance. She had a gift for striking set pieces – her laburnum tunnel and above all her supremely photogenic potager, inspired by Villandry, were copied the world over.

Key women garden designers working in Britain and beyond today

Rosemary Alexander

Mother of four, Rosemary Alexander was given six months to prove herself when she began work in the 1970s as the only female trainee in a London firm of landscape architects. But she confounded expectations by lasting the course, and went on to rise to prominence as a teacher, writer and designer. For 11 years she was tenant of the National Trust’s Stoneacre in Kent, where she transformed the gardens. Since 2000 she has made a new garden in Hampshire.

Lady Arabella Lennox-Boyd

Born in Rome, Arabella Lennox-Boyd spent seven years studying landscape architecture in London. In an international career spanning four decades, she has won six Chelsea Golds and created over 450 gardens, from sleek city rooftops to landscape parks and Italian palace gardens. “I’m in love with plants,” she declares. “And because I’m Italian, I’m in love with design, so I can only feel comfortable if the space is right.”

Jinny Blom

Following a first career as a psychotherapist, and a stint with Dan Pearson, self-taught Jinny Blom set up as a garden designer in 2000. Her best advice to women starting out? “Running a small business is hard work. Your family and friendships will suffer, your free time will evaporate and you will be, largely speaking, overstretched and underappreciated. But if you feel that’s the life for you, then go ahead.”

Penelope Hobhouse

At 38, Penelope Hobhouse was turned down by the landscape architecture course at Leeds, on the grounds that she was too old to make a meaningful career. Crestfallen, she went home and wrote a book – the first of many that were to provide inspiration to gardeners. In 1980 she took on the National Trust garden at Tintinhull in Somerset, which proved a stepping stone to a stellar international career in garden design.

Sarah Price

After struggling to make a living as an artist, Sarah Price retrained as a garden designer. Working on the Olympic Park, youth was more an issue than gender. “As a young woman designer, I was treated with a great deal more respect on the Olympic project than on many less high-profile jobs. It almost seems, the less professional the environment, the more prejudice you have to overcome.”

Arit Anderson

Garden designer and BBC TV presenter Arit Anderson started out in the world of fashion, but her career in garden design was kickstarted after she won the RHS Chelsea Fresh Talent Award in 2013. She studied at Capel Manor and set up Diamond Hill garden design, which focuses on London and the surrounding counties.

Ula Maria

Since she won the RHS Young Designer of the year in 2017, designer Ula Maria has not looked back, and she now has a gold medal  and an RHS Silver-gilt medal to add to her original accolade. Having grown up in rural Lithuania she has a particular connection with nature and emotive, sensory experiences in her gardens.

Brita von Schoenaich

In 1994, German-born Brita von Schoenaich introduced Britain to German naturalistic planting at a symposium at Kew. Von Schoenaich focuses on details in her gardens and she worked on Marks Hall Aboretum, creating a three-acre lakeside garden to complement and contrast with the wider estate. She studied at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew before taking a postgraduate course in landscape design and now works alongside Christopher Bradley-Hole.

Sarah Eberle

A trailblazer for women starting out on their careers, Sarah Eberle is one of this country’s most important garden designers and the most decorated designer at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. She looks to landscapes and architecture, rather than gardens, for ideas and often finds herself visiting scrap yards and quarries because both hold so much potential for creating something new. “I love brutal landscapes, such as deserts and volcanic areas, where nature shows such strength and personality.”

Juliet Sargeant

An initial career in the medical profession meant that Juliet Sargeant learnt quickly how important the natural world can be for healing. Juliet won a Gold Medal and the People’s Choice Prize for her 2016 Chelsea Flower Show garden, the Modern Slavery Garden, which was the show’s first ever social campaign garden. She is on the panel for show garden selection at Chelsea and was made a fellow of the Society of Garden Designers in 2017 for her contribution to garden design & horticulture.

Charlotte Harris

Charlotte Harris is returning to Chelsea this year with her working partner Hugo Bugg with a Horatio’s Garden, a wheelchair accessible garden for patients recovering from spinal injury. It will be relocated to Northern General Hospital in Sheffield to benefit its patients and staff. Charlotte’s work over the years has included several show gardens at Chelsea as well as the Clumber Park pleasure grounds and, with Hugo, she aims to create durable, sustainable landscapes. Watch our video on Charlotte Harris’s 100 favourite plants and read her article: There are brilliant women in gardening – why don’t we see more of them?

Isabel Bannerman

Along with her husband Julian, Isabel Bannerman has been designing gardens and gardens for over 30 years. Together they’ve won gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show and their book Landscape of Dreams, documents the projects they have taken on – from unloved, unknown houses to projects from HRH the Prince of Wales at Highgrove, Paul Getty and Waddesdon Manor.

Jo Thompson

Ann-Marie Powell

Charlotte Rowe

Midori Shintani

The head gardener of Tokachi Millennium Forest, Midori Shintani maintains and manages the brainchild of entrepreneur Mitsushige Hayashi, a space that was created by Fumiako Takano in collaboration with Dan Pearson. “This garden is a bridge between humans and nature. We use minimum tools, minimum management, but maximum vision. We have a mission to introduce a new garden movement. The potential is exciting,” she said.

Andrea Cochran

The garden above, which overlooks the San Franciscan Bay, is a study in simple block planting and bold architectural design from Andrea Cochran, an American designer with over 30 years worth of experience creating private and public gardens. Her influences include Dan Kiley, Garrett Eckbo and James Rose and she works on everything to community housing projects to museum courtyard gardens.

Marie-Louise Agius

The designer began her career at Clifton Nurseries in London and has since worked on projects including an urban planning project in Northamptonshire and a large private estate  in Yorkshire. In 2013 she won a Gold Medal for the East Village Show Garden at the centenary of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Her great-grandfather created the gardens at Exbury, of which she is now a trustee.

British gardens are key habitats for bees and butterflies and gardeners can do a lot to attract wildlife and help the decline in pollinators. An increase in beneficial insects can mean fewer pests, too. Our guide to attracting wildlife into the garden gives advice on ecological design, the best plants for pollinators and stylish container displays for beneficial insects.

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If a plant is listed as pollinator friendly, it means it will provide nectar and pollen for pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies. It also refers to the shape of the flower and how the plant has been grown. Pollinator-plants will often have trumpet-shaped blooms or single flowers for insects to crawl into and land on, and mostly free from pesticides. Look out for the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plants for Pollinators symbol at garden centres and plant nurseries if you want reassurance that you’re buying the best plants for garden wildlife.

Here is our guide to attracting wildlife into the garden, with advice on pollinator-friendly plants and how to improve wildlife habitats through considered garden design.

How to attract wildlife to your garden

There are lots of ways to encourage wildlife into the garden, from simply planting a range of different flowering plants, to building an insect hotel or introducing a bird feeder. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Grow a range of bee and butterfly-loving plants and flowers

• Make sure the plants have different flower shapes to invite a whole host of beneficial insects into the garden. Salvias or Verbena bonariensis attract butterflies and bees, and trees and evergreen or flowering shrubs that will provide shelter for birds. Try to leave a patch of nettles, as they are beneficial as food to caterpillars. Here’s our list of the best plants for bees, and the best plants for butterflies. 

Leave seeds head up over winter for insects

• In winter, leave architectural seed heads for birds to feed on and plants with strong stems are perfect for hibernating beetles and solitary bees.

Look for plants that bees will love – full of pollen

• Avoid sterile plants with little or no pollen. These are often double flowered cultivars.

Build a pond

• Build a pond for frogs. They’ll eat the slugs attacking your lettuce. Make sure small animals can get out of the pond easily by creating a boggy area around it. We love these garden design ideas on ponds and pools. 

Make space for insect hotels and bird boxes

Hedgehog houses, insect hotels and bird boxes are all easy to add to the garden and are invaluable to hibernating wildlife and nesting birds. Don’t miss our guide on how to build a bug hotel, and here are our favourite insect hotels to buy.  Bird boxes are a great way to get birds to stick around too. 

 Plant for the birds

Planting a hedgerow a bird can eat could get them through winter. We have a great guide on the best plants for birds. 

Make sure you plant with biodiversity in mind

• Enhance biodiversity. Don’t tidy your garden too much. In autumn, leave all plants and leaves that have died off and don’t start clearing them up until February. The dead plant material offers protection against frost and shelter for insects and other small animals. Most insects like cool, moist conditions, but bees prefer a sunny spot.

Never use pesticides

If you’re looking for tips on how to control things like slugs, our piece from organic grower Poppy Okotcha explains how you can do that without nasty pesticides. 

Aim for ladybirds

• There are several pollen plants that attract ladybugs that tend to be yellow and white, such as Angelica, Cosmos and Fennel.
• Plant decoy plants that will attract aphids away from your desired bug free plants until the ladybugs remove them for you. Aphid attracting decoy plants could include: Early Cabbage, Marigold and Radish.

Ladybugs eat two things: insect pests and pollen, and there are several pollen plants that ladybugs like, including: Calendula, Chives, Cosmos and Marigold.

Attracting bats to your garden

Did you know that attracting bats to your garden is one of the safest and most efficient methods for natural insect control? One little brown bat can eat 1,200 insects per hour.

A great bat attracting method is to build a bat house to provide a warm cosy shelter for the creatures. Since bats tend to set up colonies in the early spring, building a bat house is the perfect winter project! Some tips are:

• Use a rough, nontoxic wood (such as plywood or cedar) to make your box. The rough surface will make it easier for bats to climb in and out of the house.
• Place in a warm, sunny position for warmth
• Keep it close to a freshwater source (pond, stream)
• Support on a pole or the side of a building.

The key to attracting bats to your garden is to plant night-scented flowers, such as Yucca and Evening Primrose.

Attracting frogs to your garden

Attracting frogs to your garden is beneficial for the welfare of your plants. Frogs make great insect killers so why not attract some garden frogs to help with those little pests.

• Build toad houses – overturned flower pots buried lightly in the soil make great shelters.
• Avoid using pesticides in your garden. Frogs are sensitive to chemicals so use natural sources of nutrients in your garden such as compost.
• Keep pets away from the part of the garden set up for attracting frogs.

Toads and female frogs usually spend winter on land, under rockery stones (or in a log pile). Recommended rock plants are: Aubretia, Hardy Geraniums and Sedums.

Wildlife-friendly container display

If you want your garden to benefit pollinating insects like bees and butterflies but worry your garden isn’t big enough for swathes of planting, consider creating a pot display. Containers planted with plants that attract wildlife suit a garden of any size. Try this gorgeous example.

The best seed heads for winter structure

Seedheads glistening with frost play an important part in bringing structural winter interest to the garden as well as providing food for birds and insects. For our recommended list of the best seedheads to create and eye-catching display in winter, click here.

Appreciate spiders in the garden

A healthy spider population will help reduce pest insects and should be welcome in any garden. Spiders obviously make no distinction between pests and helpful insects like hoverflies and bees, but they help maintain a natural balance wherever they are. Find out how to appreciate the spiders in your garden.

Improve your soil

No-dig gardener Charles Dowding explains why caring for the soil in your garden is just as important as caring for the plants you grow in it. Nurture your soil and you nurture the helpful organisms living in it, such as earthworms and beneficial fungi and bacteria.

Choosing and buying seeds for the year ahead is an exciting task for a gardener and during the dark days of winter when being stuck indoors is the only option, flicking through seed catalogues is a welcome reminder that spring will return.  There are many seed suppliers to choose from, many of which are specialists in their field.

Here are the best places to buy seeds

With careful planning you’ll have the perfect selection of seeds for the next growing season. We’d recommend always checking the seed suppliers’ organic credentials and trying to pick seeds which will grow into plants that are perfect for wildlife.

For more inspiration on what to plant in your garden, don’t miss our advice on the best perennials and how to plant a wildlife garden.

For detailed advice on sowing seeds, head to our guide to planting seeds.

We’ve put together a list of our favourite seed suppliers, divided into flowers, vegetables and wild flowers, to give you a head start on your gardening year.

Jump to

• The best places to buy flower seeds
• The best places to buy vegetable seeds
• Where to buy wildflower seeds

The best seed suppliers in 2023

The best places to buy flower seeds

Chiltern Seeds

The Chiltern Seeds catalogue is always tempting with a selection of inspiring images. Cultivar choice is excellent and descriptions always helpful.

Crocus

Since starting out in the year 2000, Crocus has become the largest gardening website in the UK with around 4,000 plants and seeds available to buy.

Dobies

As international suppliers of flower and vegetable seeds, Dobies has sold products direct to gardeners since 1894.

Mr Fothergill’s
An extensive range of flower and vegetable seeds, including potato, onion and garlic sets. Plantsman Graham Rice writes a regular blog for the website, which provides useful discussion on some aspect of Mr Fothergill’s offerings.

Gardening Express

Online retailer Gardening Express now sells thousands of plants and seeds every week throughout the UK and Europe. If they don’t have a plant that you’re looking for then they’ll endeavour to get hold of it for you.

Great Dixter

If you’ve visited this iconic garden, you’ll have been delighted by its sheer exuberance, colour and range of plants through the season. The nursery offers flower seeds from its own stock chosen by the staff and students as notable. Seed is then harvested fresh by hand and supplied in glassine bags.

Higgledy Garden

Grower and owner Benjamin Ranyard trials a selection of flowers at his field in Suffolk. He then sells a range of seed specifically for the flower cutting patch – sometimes working with florists to ensure the best range. The Higgledy website also has plenty of growing tips and a monthly planting guide.

Plant World Seeds

Extensive range of seeds for flowers and vegetables but also trees and shrubs and grasses – many of them rare and unusual. It ships around the world.

Plants of Distinction

A small, family-run business based in Suffolk that has built up a good range of both flower and vegetables that rivals some of the larger, more commercial seed companies.

Primrose

Online retailer Primrose of Reading, Berkshire, has a large range of flower and vegetable seeds along with almost everything garden related.

Sarah Raven

Sarah is renowned for her carefully curated collections of traditional flowers for her cutting garden. Her seed selection is relatively small but you can be assured that those she has included are good ones.

Special Plants

Plantswoman Derry Watkins runs a fantastic nursery in a hidden valley near Bath. Her plant selection is impeccable and you’ll always find something of interest there. Added to which, she sells a range of flower seed too. Of particular note is her fresh seed.

Thompson & Morgan

Established in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has a wide range of seed for flowers and vegetables, regularly winning awards for its offerings. You’ll find plenty of choice on cultivars and good descriptions.

Unwins

Another of the big all-rounders with a wide range of seed – many offered as part of special deals – so worth keeping an eye out for seasonal promotions. Unwins is best known for its range of sweet peas, and has an ongoing breeding programme and extensive sweet pea trials each year.

The best places to buy vegetable seeds

Heritage Seed Library

Run by Garden Organic, the Heritage Seed Library is a members-only resource that offers a selection of rare, hard-to-get-hold-of, heritage vegetable seed – many of which have been lost to standard seed catalogues.

Jekka’s Herb Farm

If you are growing for flavour then herbs are an essential, and probably your best guide as to which to grow is award-winner Jekka McVicar. The nursery stocks 140 varieties of herb, with notables including winter purslane as an excellent winter salad crop; summer savoury, excellent with all forms of beans and pulses; and blue hyssop for its savoury minty/thyme flavour – and pollinator popular blue flowers.

Kings Seeds

Much of Kings Seeds stock comes from its own 300-acre farm. Good selection of vegetables and flower cultivars, including an organic range of vegetable seed. It also stocks the range from Suffolk Herbs.

Marshalls

A good all-rounder, with plenty of choice covering a range of different vegetables. The duo packs, with two complementary cultivars, are a great way to discover more of the variety available within one vegetable type and benefit from an extended harvesting season or variations in flavour.

Moles Seeds

An independent seed merchant with good selection sourced from some of the best seed producers. Anyone looking to current food trends should check the sections on crops best suited to baby leaf and microgreens harvesting. Although wholesale, Moles Seeds will supply anyone looking for larger quantities, so great for smallholding owners and gardening groups.

Seed Co-Operative

An initiative was set up on the belief that the future of food needs to be rooted in a diversity of genetics and wildlife. All seed are from open pollinated varieties, adapted to organic growing systems. Finalists in the 2017 BBC Food and Farming Awards.

Pennard Plants

A 2019 RHS Master Grower, Pennard Plants sells one of the largest selections of edible plants, heritage and heirloom seeds, fruits and herbs. All the stock is UK grown, many of it by themselves in their Victorian walled garden in Somerset. For those keen to grow their own plant protein, Pennard stocks amaranthus and quinoa seeds.

Real Seeds

Everything in Real Seeds’ offering has been chosen only after trialling to check its success both in the vegetable garden and in the kitchen. All seed are open pollinated (non-hybrid) so you can collect and resow your own seed from one year to the next.

Sea Spring Seeds

Every vegetable cultivar has been tested before it’s included in the catalogue. For 2019 it is encouraging us to try ‘mange tout’ chilli peppers. Cultivars such as ‘Hungarian Hot Wax’ and ‘Frigitello’ can be harvested small and either fried or grilled to be eaten whole in the same way as Padrón peppers.

Seeds of Italy

Paolo Arrigo who is a passionate seedsmen has declared a climate emergency on seed biodiversity. “In just 100 years, 94 per cent of the world’s heritage veg has gone,” says Paolo. Franchi focuses on the remaining six per cent, promoting them for their taste and regional diversity and including cultivars from the Slow Food Ark of Taste, the register of foods at risk of being lost.

Suttons

Nice, clear website that makes it easy to find what you want from Suttons’ all-round range of seeds. It also works with ethnobotanist James Wong to offer a range of vegetables and edible flower seeds that James has chosen for their focus on flavour and high nutritional value.

Tamar Organics

A good range of vegetables for the organic gardener along with helpful, clear, growing advice. Tamar Organics supports charity Joliba Trust working in central Mali to help fund horticultural projects.

Thomas Etty

Among the range of vegetables offered by Thomas Etty are 52 perennial vegetables – an option for grow your own often overlooked. Examples such as sea orach, tuberous pea, perennial broccoli and skirret are worth having a look at,  alongside more unusual veg choices, such as the pink ‘Roscoff’ onion from Brittany with its unique flavour good for eating raw or cooked and ‘Tall Telephone’  pea yielding eight to ten peas per large pod.

Chiltern seeds

There is always something to look forward to in Chiltern’s herb and vegetable selections. This year it has included British basil – selected specifically for growing in the UK and climbing bean ‘Cobra’, encouragingly resistant to a variable British summer. Look out for beetroot ‘Crapaudine’, new to Chiltern Seeds. This is one of the oldest beetroot cultivars, carrot shaped and with an oddly rough skin (resembling its namesake derived from the French for toad). Underneath is a richly coloured flesh with superior flavour.

Where to buy wildflower seeds

Emorsgate seeds

Run by committed botanists and ecologists to promote the importance not just of growing more wildflowers but of working with nature. Its wildflower and grass mixes are grouped by habitat, such as meadow, and then by soil type so you get the right mix of species for your area. Excellent whether you’re creating a large meadow area or simply want to increase the biodiversity in your garden.

Pictorial meadows

Seed mixes for annual and perennial meadow-style planting. These were originally developed by Nigel Dunnett from his work at the University of Sheffield and are aimed to provide impact of colour and lots of nectar-rich flower

Other resources

Seed swaps
If you are looking for recommended, locally suited, unusual cultivars of flowers and vegetables, try researching community seed swapping events. These are a great opportunity to meet other growers, hear first-hand of growing experiences and discover new favourites.

Wakehurst Seed Bank
And finally, a word for the wonder of seeds and the biodiversity they represent. The Millennium Seed Bank, at Wakehurst Place in Sussex, is Kew’s project to conserve 25 per cent of the world’s seeds to ensure against future extinction. See the website to find out more and discover the amazing science behind seeds.
kew.org/wakehurst

The National Collection of Clematis montana is held Val Le Neville-Parry at her garden By The Way in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and contains more than 200 plants in 50 named varieties and cultivars.

Some Clematis montana are rampant, reaching 8m or more, but clematis breeding has produced more compact varieties that are suitable for growing in smaller gardens, or even pots. For all types, flowering is longer than is often assumed, starting in early March and continuing into late June. All Clematis montana go on to produce fluffy seedheads in autumn and into winter.

Foliage is also a feature. “I love the leaves as much as the flowers,” says Val, who shares her recommendations here. Many are available commercially, although some can currently only be seen growing at By The Way.

You may also like

• The best climbing plants
• How to prune clematis and climbing plants
• Late-flowering clematis

How to grow Clematis montana

Medium and large Clematis montana 

The more vigorous types of Clematis montana can reach 8m or more, with some of the fully vigorous cultivars reaching 10-12m, depending on growing conditions. These are versatile plants with many uses in the garden.

In her garden, Val uses a Clematis montana var. grandiflora to transform a laurel hedge running down one side of the garden; its shining white blooms, which are among of the largest flowers in the group, sit like butterflies on the glossy leaves of the laurel. Both clematis and laurel are pruned together and thrive on it. The vigorous Clematis montana var. wilsonii can be used as ground cover where space permits. It forms an undulating carpet of foliage studded with scented creamy-white flowers in early summer.

Compact Clematis montana

Many varieties and cultivars of Clematis montana have been bred to have a more contained habit that is less rampant than the vigorous ones. These compact montanas grow to around 4-7m, depending on cultivar and growing conditions, and are a great choice to grow over arches and obelisks. They can be grown on the trunks of mature trees or up poles to add vertical interest to a bed or border.

Compact Clematis Montana will also grow successfully in large pots (at least 50 litres) with a loam-based growing medium with regular watering and feeding with a slow-release fertiliser. Regular watering and annual feeding with a slow-release fertiliser are both essential.

Compact clematis cultivars can be combined with later flowering Clematis viticella or encouraged to scramble up plant supports, obelisks or poles to add vertical interest to a border.

Pruning Clematis montana

Clematis montana is in Clematis Pruning Group 1. It does not need regular pruning, but if is getting too large or leggy, cut it back after flowering, in spring. Regular pruning will encourage strong growth and good flowering and will ensure that the flowers remain at eye level, with no bare, tangled stems at the base.

Read our expert guide to pruning clematis.

The best Clematis montana to grow

Medium to large Clematis montana

Clematis. montana var. grandiflora

The hardiest and most reliable, fully vigorous montana. Open, pure-white blooms with primrose stamens create a stunning display over cascading stems from late spring. AGM. Hardiness: RHS H5, USDA 4a-9b. Height: 8-12m.

Buy Clematis Montana Var. Grandiflora from Crocus

Buy Clematis Montana Var. Grandiflora from Primrose

Clematis Giant Star (=’Gistar’)

A large-flowered cultivar, introduced from New Zealand. Cup-shaped blooms with waved tepals of mid-pink, paler at the edges eventually open flat and upward facing. A medium-growing montana. Height: up to 10m.

Buy Clematis Giant Star from Norfolk Quality Plants

Buy Clematis Giant Star from the RHS

Clematis ‘Victoria Welcome’

An elegant, medium-growing, single montana selected by Val. Its delicate dark-green leaves are matched by starry white, green-eyed blooms, reflexed at the tepal edges. Not yet available commercially.

Clematis ‘Marilyn’

A seedling of C. ‘Prosperity’ named after a friend of Val’s. The mauve-pink blooms open as tiny, cream-eyed stars but mature to open, blooms with the longest, narrow tepals in the group. Medium. Height: up to 8m.

Clematis ‘Broughton Star’

Val is generally not as keen on the doubles, mainly because they prefer a richer soil, but she makes an exception for this medium-growing double. Fabulously floriferous, it has abundant dusky-pink, veined blooms that are displayed against dark, bronze-tinted foliage. Excellent  to grow through a shrub or a small tree. AGM. Hardiness: RHS H5, USDA 7a-9b. Height: up to 8m.

Buy Clematis Broughton Star from Crocus

Buy Clematis Broughton Star from Thompson & Morgan

Buy Clematis Broughton Star from Van Meuwen

Compact Clematis montana

Clematis montana ‘By the Way’

A selected seedling that has proved to be one of the best singles. Blooming from the base to the tip, the medium-growing cultivar has soft-pink, deliciously fragrant open blooms that develop into seedheads remaining attractive throughout autumn. Not available commercially.

Clematis ‘Marjorie’

Abundant, semi-double flowers with creamy-white outer tepals, becoming pink; the narrow inner tepals darker. At its best in fertile soil and full sun, the flowers open later than single montanas. Height: up to 6m.

Buy Clematis Marjorie from Crocus

Buy Clematis Marjorie from Thompson & Morgan

Clematis montana var. rubens ‘Veitch’

Small, open blooms of square formation with rounded tepals  of deep, mauve-pink with pale stamens. Best against a light background and seen at close quarters. Hardiness: USDA 7a-9b. Height: up to 4m.

Buy similar varieties, Clematis Montana Var. Rubens Odorata, Pink Perfection and Tetrarose from Crocus

Buy Clematis Montana Var. Rubens from Primrose

Clematis ‘Van Gogh’

Excellent cultivar that blooms early and continues for up to six weeks. Cherry-pink blooms, sometimes double at the end of the flowering period. Good choice for a large pot in a sheltered situation. Height: up to 4m.

Buy Clematis Van Gough from Gardening Express

Buy Clematis Van Gough from the RHS

Clematis ‘Primrose Star’

Attractive compact cultivar that grows to around 6m. From New Zealand with fully double pale, lemon-yellow flowers, pink at the edge of the tepals. It needs a sunny spot and fertile soil. Height: up to 3.5m.

Buy Clematis Primrose Star from Gardening Express

Buy Clematis Primrose Star from Primrose

Buy Clematis Primrose Star from the RHS

Clematis ‘Freda’

One of the best compact singles, which was discovered by Freda Deacon in her Suffolk garden and later introduced by nurseryman Jim Fisk. Probably a seedling from C. montana var. rubens ‘Pink Perfection’, it has open, lightly fragrant, mauve-pink blooms, which are darker at the edges and displayed against bronze-green leaves. AGM. Hardiness: RHS H6, USDA 3a-8b. Height: up to 4m.

Buy Clematis Freda from Crocus

Buy Clematis Freda from Gardening Express

Buy Clematis Freda from the RHS

Clematis ‘The Jewell’

A compact cultivar and Val’s all-time favourite. It produces posies of apple blossom-like blooms, darker on the outside of the tepals, from late spring through to autumn. It is named after David Jewell at Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and has C. chrysocoma in its parentage. Height: up to 4m.

More information on hardiness ratings can be found here.

A Victorian greenhouse is one place in which it’s possible to keep your beloved plants happy through the seasons. 

Their glass construction means spaces are flooded with natural light but protected from the elements and you can therefore support the growth of plants from around the world. Fruit trees and tropical plants tend to love the microclimate of glasshouses. 

Here are the reasons to have a Victorian greenhouse

But if you’re looking for a space to enjoy yourself as a garden room in addition to being functional, a Victorian glass house is a great step up from a traditional greenhouse. 

Sizes and construction materials vary, with everything from self assembly panels to permanent freestanding structures complete with concealed piping, cold frames and water butts for capturing rainwater.  If you’re looking for something smaller, we’ve also created a list of the best mini greenhouses.

Whether you’re looking for a growing environment, garden room to fill with relaxing furniture or combination of the two, discover some of the best Victorian greenhouses and greenhouses with porches for gardens of all shapes and sizes. 

17 beautiful Victorian greenhouses available online in 2023

Palram Canopia Oasis Hexagonal Greenhouse

Sitting towards the more affordable end of the spectrum, the Palram is designed to be a permanent greenhouse structure requiring minimal maintenance that uses modern materials to achieve a truly classic design.

Its structure is made from a rust-resistant aluminium and uses panes of clear polycarbonate as a lightweight and almost unbreakable alternative to glass that are four millimetres thick.

It also comes with a threshold ramp for easy access for wheel barrows or wheelchairs and wide double doors.

Halls Highgrove Greenhouse and Base

• Buy now from Dobies (£938.00)

Choose this greenhouse for its unusual curved panels, made with UV-treated acrylic. 

In fact, you’ll find several clever design features included in this greenhouse design. There’s a smooth 60cm-wide sliding door for easy access, while a hinged roof vent allows for excellent ventilation.

Opt for the 4’ x 6′ greenhouse or the 6′ x 6′ model if you’re after a fairly compact structure. Alternatively, go for the 8′ x 6′ version for extra space.

Buy the Halls Highgrove Greenhouse and Base from Dobies

Vale Victorian Greenhouse by Forest Garden

For traditional design and high-quality timber, try the Vale Victorian Greenhouse. The manufacturers use slow-grown, smooth-planed wood to make sure it has a consistent finish. The timber also comes pressure treated to protect it from rot and decay.

Added bonuses include the strong tongue and groove wood cladding around the base of the greenhouse, and the 4mm toughened safety glass across the upper. For ventilation, there are two opening panels in the roof, as well as double doors. 

The greenhouse also comes with two full-width shelves on one side, so you can start potting up plants straight away.

Harrod Superior Greenhouse Cool Sage

• Buy now from Harrod Horticultural (£2,320.00) 

Strong aluminium roof braces, external roller blinds and integrated guttering make this Victorian greenhouse a practical option, able to stand up to even the roughest British weather. 

It also has easy access, thanks to the low-threshold doorway with no step. And there are roof vents and rails for hanging baskets, which makes the greenhouse a versatile choice.

What’s more, you can customise the inside of your greenhouse by selecting optional extras such as staging and shelves. No matter your choice, they’ll come in the same sage tone as the rest of the structure, so it’ll all match perfectly.

Palram Victory Orangery Greenhouse

Sitting towards the more affordable end of the spectrum, the Palram is designed to be a permanent greenhouse structure requiring minimal maintenance that uses modern materials to achieve a classic design. 

Its structure is a rust-resistant aluminium and uses panes of clear polycarbonate as a lightweight and almost unbreakable alternative to glass. 

It comes with a threshold ramp for easy access for wheel barrows or wheelchairs and wide double doors. 

Forest Garden Victorian Walkaround Greenhouse

Garden Chic

This is a Victorian greenhouse in miniature,  designed with four opening doors in natural timber and styrene glazing, for walk-around access from all sides.

Features like its apex roof are in keeping with traditional greenhouses. Its 989mm x 1239mm footprint means it’s also small enough to stand in small gardens where space is a premium, without being too intrusive.

Slatted staging is removable and offers room enough for two grow bag trays. One air vent can also be opened to encourage airflow. 

Mottisfont National Trust Collection

• Buy now from National Trust (£20,295.00)

One of eight specially designed Victorian greenhouse in partnership with the National Trust, the Mottisfont free standing glass house combines a stylistic appearance with solid construction. 

Sustainability is a key principle to the National Trust and the aluminium frame used is 100% recyclable. It’s also resistant to rust, making it particularly suitable for freestanding glasshouses. 

 The RHS Portico by Gabriel Ash

• Buy now through the RHS (£16,638.00+)

Steep roof pitches are a key feature of the RHS Portico, which uses narrow panes and wooden cedar panels for a warm, natural appearance. 

 There is a central porch allowing for access from the side and you’re able to choose from cedre panels or a dwarf wall for the glasshouse to sit on.

Juliana Orangery 10 x 14 Greenhouse

• Buy now from Garden Chic (£5,099.00)

The apex roof and ornate gables give this orangery a grandeur beyond its 10 x 14 size. 

Available in aluminium, black or anthracite/black, this glasshouse can be personalised to best suit the space you have available. A low threshold gives it easy access for wheelchairs or for manoeuvring large garden tools in and out. 

The integral base is included and there are four roof vents for ventilation along with six downpipes.  

Clearview Garden Buildings

• Buy now from Garden Chic (£899.00+)

The redwood pine used to make the frame and shiplap boarding of this traditional greenhouse is managed and sourced to FSC and PEFC standards. It makes a difference to know there’s sustainable materials forming the structure’s simple but sturdy frame. 

Standing 8ft 10“ wide and 19ft 6” in length, this Clearview greenhouse should offer plenty of space for both planting and sitting.  

Rosemary Greenhouse, National Garden Scheme Collection 

• Buy now from Griffin Glasshouse (£26,700.00+)

This beautiful option from Griffin Glasshouse has a very wide porch to make access easier, allow for much more flexibility with your planting schemes.

One of the nice things about this Victorian Greenhouse is that it’s part of Griffin’s National Garden Scheme collection, which makes a five per cent donation to the charity upon every purchase. There are also plenty of options available with this greenhouse, including built in water storage tanks, flexible shelving and seating, ventilation options and cold frames with lids.

Traditional Greenhouse (10m x 4m) with cold frames

• Buy now from Victorian Greenhouses (£35,760.00+)

This is a luxuriously extravagant Victorian greenhouse that once built, should stand the test of time.

With longevity built into the price, you would get support with everything from design right through to construction with this greenhouse. Designs can be constructed in timber or steel. 

WG Grace & Son Greenhouse with lobby

• Buy now from WG Grace & Son (£18,590.00+)

A lobby area in a greenhouse is not only useful but something of a luxury. But with a large porch greenhouse like this, luxury is what you’re getting. 

High ceilings offer the opportunity for large climbers like fruit trees to grow upwards and flourish. Grace & Son offer this style of glasshouse in two widths: 2.665 and 3.525 with the opportunity to tailor the length of the glasshouse. So you can choose just how much floor space you’d like. 

Bespoke Victorian Lodge 

• Buy now from Hartley Botanic (price on application)

This is an opportunity to create a tailor made Victorian glasshouse in keeping with traditional designs but customised to your space. 

Narrower glass panes are a typical characteristic of Victorian greenhouses but 4mm toughened safety glass should offer strength and support against poor weather. If a porch is on your features list, this could be a great one to consider. 

Greenhouse with dormer porch

•  Buy now from Dovetail Greenhouses (£23,000.00+)

Dovetail Greenhouse

Said to be extra strong in construction, the Dovetail greenhouse is made from aluminium frames and designed to withstand extreme weather conditions. 

This particular design is a lean-to Victorian glasshouse with a dormer porch and you have the option of grounding this on a brick wall or going with glass from floor to ceiling.    

Kingsbury with integrated porch

•  Buy now from Woodpecker Joinery (£11,695.00)

Hand crafted, the Kingsbury victorian greenhouse is a mini cedre masterpiece designed to sit as a stand alone garden feature and relaxing space. Its porch measures in at 7ft x 3t. 

Double doors also feature to provide easy entry in and out with bulky plants, tools or equipment. 

 The Croft 

• Buy now from White Cottage Greenhouses (£8,598.00)

With a unique dormer entrance, this is a small and perfectly formed Victorian greenhouses designed to provide a protective space for your plants within a minimalist footprint. 

White Cottage Greenhouses combine Accoya wood frames and aluminium extrusions to create classic-looking structures with the strength and durability of contemporary glazing and reinforced systems.  

Nature loss is a huge topic at the moment, and if you’re thinking of redesigning or refreshing your garden, it is always worth making sure you’re making changes that will benefit wildlife.   So whether you’re planning a new garden, thinking of redesigning an old one, or just looking for a few new ideas, here are a few things to think about.

How to avoid losing nature from your garden design

Wildflower meadows are in, but are they realistic?

For many gardeners, wildlife gardening and growing a wildflower meadow are almost synonymous. But on a normal fertile garden soil, making a convincing wildflower meadow is hard work. Some long grass is great for all kinds of wildlife, but don’t lose too much sleep if your meadow is long on grass and short on flowers.

Do boxes for wildlife really do the trick?

A very mixed bunch. Some, such as bird boxes and solitary bee hotels, work a treat. Others, such as hedgehog boxes and nest boxes for bumblebees, are a waste of time and money. In fact the best thing you can do for hedgehogs is …..

Get rid of your fence and plant a hedge

If you’ve any choice in what divides you from your neighbours, nothing is better for wildlife than a hedge – a terrific habitat in its own right and also completely porous, allowing free movement between adjacent gardens. If your garden has a fence, make a hedgehog-sized hole in it – now!

Here’s more on hedges

Don’t worry about making a space for nettles

Caterpillars of a few common butterflies eat nettles, but nettles are one of Britain’s commonest plants already, and there’s absolutely no evidence that planting more does the butterflies that eat them any good at all.

Definitely don’t invest in paving

Key resources for wildlife are soil, plants and water, none of which are provided by paving. In fact, it’s hard to think of anything worse for wildlife. So, although it’s hard to enjoy your garden without some paving, keep it to a minimum.

Compost is a no-brainer, just don’t bother turning it

An RHS survey reveals that only a third of gardeners compost their garden waste. But home-made compost is free, almost effortless to make, and helps to feed both your plants and all the unseen but vital life in your soil. Just remember – whatever anyone else tells you, compost heaps do not need turning.

Here’s the best compost for potting

15 of the best compost bins to buy

Make sure you have water for mammals and birds

If we’re having another long hot summer (or even if we’re not), ensure your garden provides water for birds and mammals to bathe and drink. If you don’t have a pond, at least provide a shallow bird bath, and take care that it’s kept both clean and topped up.

If you can provide a pond, however small, dragonflies are almost sure to turn up, but the mature nymphs need emergent vegetation to climb up, so they will only lay eggs if your pond has the right plants. Sweet flag (Acorus), irises, flowering rush (Butomus umbellatus) and reedmace (Typha spp.) are all good choices.

Here’s our guide to saving water in the garden

The best water butts to buy

Plant up so you have flowers in winter

Late winter and early spring is a perilous time for bumblebees as they start to establish new nests. The first cohort of workers are small, which means they can’t fly far and, if there’s a cold snap, aren’t good at coping with low temperatures either. So gardeners should make sure there are lots of bee-friendly flowers in winter and early spring: for example Christmas box, mahonia, winter honeysuckle, willow, Clematis cirrhosa, crocus, hellebores, lungwort (Pulmonaria spp.), primrose and rosemary.

Squeeze in a tree

Space doesn’t allow me to list all the good things that trees do for both you and the environment, so every garden, however small, should try to squeeze in at least one. If you’ve only room for one small tree, my personal recommendation is a Victoria plum; great for spring pollinators, nothing beats your own plums fresh from the tree, and don’t get me started on plum crumble.

Here’s How to plant a tree

Make room for herbs

Quite apart from being a scented and culinary delight, few things are more pollinator-friendly than a herb garden. The mint family, including lavender, sage, basil, rosemary, marjoram, thyme and mint itself, are all bee magnets. Chives are hard to beat too, while anything in the carrot family (fennel, dill, parsley, coriander and chervil) is terrific for hoverflies.

Here’s more on how to attract wildlife in your garden

Head gardener Jenny Barnes has turned rose training into an art form. She trains them in wonderfully imaginative ways along walls, creates free-standing rose domes and even trains them impressively through trees.

Here she shares her secrets to creating these beautiful living sculptures.

Here’s how to train climbing roses 

Rose training: how to train roses creatively

Training roses along walls

The main rose stems are tied to wires on the wall, and subsequent stems are coaxed into complex curves and interwoven spirals. The rose is tied to itself, again and again, until a cage-like structure is formed. Patterns and shapes are created with the new stems, which add interest to a bare wall throughout the non-flowering period. You can also craft open spaces, or windows, in the design to form a focal point that draws the eye. The overall effect is one of neatness, structure and control, important in the winter months when there is little else to see. Come summer, the vigorous shoots break out from their constraints and the rose’s romance is returned.

3 of the best roses for wall training

Rosa ‘Albéric Barbier’

A large climber with clusters of incredibly pretty buttermilk buds opening to creamy-white flowers that look like crumpled tissues. New growth is slender and very supple making it particularly easy to train. Happy on a north-facing wall. 7m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.

Rosa Malvern Hills (= ‘Auscanary’)

A healthy, mid-sized rose rambler  that will quickly cover a wall with clusters of soft yellow flowers. Highly scented, it blooms consistently all summer and throws long, flexible new stems that are great for spiralling into creative shapes. 6m. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.

Rosa ‘Cécile Brünner’

A very vigorous, large rose climber producing masses of shaggy pink flowers for months on end. Its red-tinted stems create a stunning framework against paler stone. Evergreen in mild winters, which means slightly more work when pruning, but well worth the extra effort. 4m. AGM. RHS H5.

Here’s more roses we love

Rose training into domes

I use roses as sculpture material, creating beautiful organic shapes that add to the garden regardless of the time of year. Depending on the rose you choose, these can be small, delicate, finely woven pieces or vast, bold, in-your-face statements. Whichever you create, a free-standing rose sculpture will add structure to your garden through the difficult winter months when borders have been cut down and much of the garden has been put to bed.

It is important to remember that when sculpting with roses, you can only work with what you have, the rose will guide you when creating your desired shape, do not go into it with a prefixed idea of what you want. Using the flexible new shoots, tie the stems to each other, criss-crossing and interlinking to create a strong, rigid frame. The rigidity will improve year on year. Organic, free-form shapes look best in a natural environment and I love to create balls, wrapping the long stems around each other to form a series of different-sized globes.

3 of the best roses for free-standing rose sculptures

Rosa ‘Paul’s Himalayan Musk’

One of my favourite roses to work with, producing an abundance of blush-pink flowers throughout the summer followed by bright-red hips. Masses of very long, new growth, which is perfect for manipulating into beautiful organic shapes. 5m. RHS H6, USDA 4a-9b.

Rosa ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’

An absolute dream of a rose to sculpt; virtually thornless, the stems are both strong and flexible, creating a sturdy framework to support the large, elegant, white blooms. Repeat flowering with a powerful fruity scent, this is a great all rounder. 6m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.

Rosa ‘Zigeunerknabe’

Sometimes sold as ‘Gipsy Boy’, this large shrub rose has sprays of dark-crimson flowers. Flowers only once in early summer, but once trained, the glossy, dark-green foliage and thick stems create a fantastic structure with or without the flowers. I recommend for poor positions. 1.5m. RHS H7.

Here’s more roses to buy and grow

Rose training in trees

Roses that are best suited to growing through trees tend to be the extremely large and very vigorous ramblers, as they need to be able to compete with the tree itself. Rambling roses, however, have a tendency to live up to their name, and there will eventually come a time when your rambling rose gets the better of whatever tree is supporting it – especially if that tree is relatively small – so rigorous pruning is imperative to keep it in check.

As they annually throw masses of very strong, flexible growth from the base, ramblers can very quickly become a tangled mass of stems, reaching for adjacent trees and shrubs and becoming tangled in long grass. However, it is this malleable new growth that I bend and twist, weaving it back up into the tree like a helix around a central core. You can then tie the stems along branches, so that the ends are allowed to hang down to create an umbrella-like effect, or coiled back up into globes hanging at different heights beneath the leaves.

3 of the best roses for training through shrubs and trees

Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’

An absolute monster of a rose. Plant with caution as it’s huge, but if you have the space (and a well-established tree) then you can’t beat the clouds of fragrant, white flowers, followed by coral-red hips. Masses of exceptionally long, new growth from the base, so lots of artistic potential. 18m. AGM. RHS H6.

Rosa ‘Wedding Day’

An exceptionally large rambler, with numerous lemony-white, single flowers, the bees love it. With its dark, glossy foliage and tough, strong stems, it’s a great rose for creating extra-large sculptures. Big impact and maximum wow factor. 8m. RHS H6, USDA 4a-9b.

Rosa ‘Rambling Rector’

Another vigorous rambler providing heaps of supple, new growth, great for bending and shaping into works of art. Growth habit is a bit twiggy, so slightly more work to maintain a simple structure, but the resulting flowers – semi double, creamy white with a strong clove scent – are absolutely beautiful. 5m. AGM. RHS H6, USDA 4a-9b.

You may also like

• How to prune roses
• Tips for combining perennials and roses
• 15 of the best roses at Sissinghurst