Big gardens

A garden arbour

How to make a garden arbour and tunnel using natural materials

Poppies in a meadow

Expert tips for designing a meadow

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Reducing plastic in your garden and allotment

Internet in the garden

How to boost Wi-Fi and get the Internet in your garden

Marian Boswell's layered border planting plan

Garden border ideas How to create a mixed border planting plan

The zestful planting of the main borders of the garden seems to be a continuum of colourful plants but they are bisected by grass paths. In the foreground the punchy, red flowers of Monarda ‘Jacob Cline’ float around the purple flowers of Salvia nemorosa ‘Amethyst’.

Layered perennial planting in a Cheshire garden

Doddington Place

Gardens to visit

Historic gardens to visit

Rousham. Photo: Andrew Lawson

Rousham: England’s most influential garden?

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Hard and soft palettes in a Californian garden

Sissinghurst’s Delos garden has been transformed into a Mediterranean-style space in line with the original vision. Grecian altars and a Mediterranean kermes oak are placed along the main walkway

Inside Sissinghurst’s Mediterranean-inspired Delos garden

The sheltered Gravel Garden where owners Nick and Louise Killen can sit among mounds of Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’ and the floating heads of Cenolophium denudatum and enjoy a view to the church where they married. The stone Farrowing House is now Nick’s office.

Creating the perfect Somerset family garden

At Upper Sydling in Dorset the landscape beyond is as much a part of the garden as the flowers within it. Here in the cutting garden, the view is framed by a floriferous mass of rambling roses, including the pretty pink Rosa ‘May Queen’, which entwine their flowering tentacles through, around and over the balustrade of ageing green oak.

Creating the perfect romantic rose garden

In a hilltop location, bands of Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Rosea’, Phlomis russeliana and self-seeded Lychnis coronaria support each other in a densely planted flower garden. The sun is setting through a Catalpa bignonioides and great plumes of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Gracillimus’ hide the parking area.

How to create a flower-filled hillside garden

With no hedges or boundary trees, the garden is open to the surrounding landscape and feels very much part of it, especially as the fluid planting has been designed to give the romantic, gauzy feel of a wildflower meadow but with a longer season of interest and a greater variety of plant type and form. Here, Sisyrinchium striatum, Lupinus ‘Noble Maiden’ and Phlomis russeliana catch the eye.

Informal planting for an idyllic Cotswold garden

The heart of the garden is an ‘oasis’ formed by an enlarged pool with associated viewing deck

Explore a Californian oasis garden