The English Garden

Enjoy over 60 beautiful gardens a year with The English Garden. Every issue features country, city, cottage and coastal gardens, with advice on how to recreate them. Be inspired by articles written by the country's top garden designers and discover the best plant varieties for your garden, chosen by expert nurserymen and plantspeople.

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From the Editor

The English Garden

This Month • Our guide to plants, people, gardens and events, tasks and shopping in August

People to Meet • Introducing the gardeners and public figures we most admire in British horticulture

Out & About • Unmissable events, news and the very best gardens to visit this month

Things to Do • A favourite hydrangea has stolen the show, taking over from hardworking roses, while Jane Moore focuses on watering and feeding plants and pots

Beautiful & Useful • New plants, books, tools and creative designs, plus shopping inspiration

Woven Magic • Elegant and effortlessly cool, rattan will add a timeless look to any garden. Durable, lightweight and eco-friendly, it's the perfect material for outdoor dining sets and loungers, while woven accents add a classic touch to almost any item of homeware. Kensington round dining table with 6 dining armchairs, £4,099. Tel: 020 8804 7474; bridgman.co.uk

Tomorrow’s WORLD • A visionary garden created by a renowned inventor, Overbeck’s Garden in Devon makes the most of its sheltered climate to grow a surprising array of subtropical plants, with head gardener Ian Trought adding to long-term planting for future impact

Mary’s PRAIRIE • In a quiet corner of Monmouthshire, Mary Barkham has created something delightfully different on the derelict farmland of Chapel Farm House, knitting together a technicolour stretch of perennials that merges with the mountains beyond

Hedging Your Bets • Within a quadrangle of farm buildings, garden designer Caroline Loup’s Mondrian-inspired layout of hedges has created spaces where her client can relax and entertain

Soft SPOT • There’s no need for formalities at The Manor House in Exton, where Tina Blackmore’s love of deep borders and informal flowing planting transforms this chalk garden of rooms into a relaxing idyll that’s much loved by its faithful regular visitors

Go With the FLOW • At Mill House in Surrey, the owners’ interest in renewables resulted in the mill race being redeployed to power the house, while the waterway’s restoration has naturalised it for the benefit of wildlife and made it a tranquil feature of this timeless garden

The Greatest SHOWMAN • The garden at Stephen Anderton’s New Inn Farm weaves together his consummate plantsmanship and passion for theatricality to create a joyously over-the-top riot of planting that’s somehow perfectly in keeping with its Welsh hillside setting

Summer Glow • Fragrant border phlox are the perfect plant for adding late-summer colour and luminosity to your planting schemes, in hushed pastels or bold radiant hues

Artists’ Muses • Thanks to their painterly charms, elegant iris bring star appeal to borders throughout the year, and designer Kristina Clode has ten to recommend

GOOD to GROW • Follow our grow-your-own series all through the year from the walled kitchen garden at Gravetye Manor in West Sussex, where head gardener Tom Coward and his team produce abundant edible crops

THE DARK SIDE • Specialising in plants with flowers and foliage in broodingly moody shades, Dark Star Plants in North Yorkshire offers an enjoyably Gothic ambience and a fascinatingly rich horticultural history

Everlasting Love • Beautiful, sustainable, enduring dried-flower bouquets and arrangements are the lifeblood of Cornish Dried Flowers, with all materials grown and crafted by...