The English Garden Ideas, Tips & Guides

It is best to chit seed potatoes six weeks before planting time. Early potato varieties grown for new potatoes such as ‘Rocket’ and ‘Swift’ are the first ones to chit, ready for planting in late March.

Early shoots are now beginning to emerge – a welcome treat after the garden’s winter slumber. Crocus peep their heads above ground in shades of purple, white and deepest gold, while the subtle blooms of hellebores are a discreet pleasure. Once snowdrops have gone over, it’s time to divide them while they’re ‘in the green’. And don’t forget to cut back ornamental grasses like calamagrostisand sow sweet peas.

Best places to see snowdrops 

Since 2015 she’s run the NT’s Heritage Horticultural Program, delivering practical workshops to hundreds of garden staff members. Here, she explains how to handle your hellebores so that you can enjoy a quality display of flowers for years to come.

You’ll need a polytunnel, greenhouse or a very light windowsill in the house to sow the seeds, which germinate readily in a small pot or tray of seed compost, kept at an even temperature around 25°C (a heated propagator will help you achieve this). Once the seeds have germinated, prick the seedlings out individually into small pots and grow on.

Clipped all-green shrubs look chic, but for seasonal cheer fill them with pastel shades: think primroses, pulmonaria and wallflowers, and even potted supermarket bulbs such as hyacinths and narcissi.

Often, these are timeless items that have truly stood the test of time, but there’s also room for innovations that have transformed the way we garden – battery-powered tools that have done away with electric cables and noisy, smelly two-stroke fuel, for example. We asked the country’s top head gardeners which tools they couldn’t contemplate gardening without.

Tool maintenance is often regarded as a chore to be done only when other gardening jobs are exhausted, usually on rainy or bitter days when the great outdoors is less than inviting. Sometimes it is avoided altogether, although deep-down most gardeners know their tools deserve better treatment. Modern tools are made either from carbon steel or stainless steel. Carbon steel tends to be stronger but can suffer from corrosion; stainless steel tools have gleaming blades that remain rust-free and prove easy to clean without need for oiling, although they are not suited to the toughest jobs.

Little is more discouraging than discovering healthy and recently-planted spring borders and developing vegetable crops damaged or eaten by rabbits; it’s enough to bring the Elmer Fudd out in the mildest of gardeners. Annoyingly rabbits are most active feeders early in morning and at dusk, and so often hard to spot; they also seem attracted to newly-planted areas. But by employing a range of tactics it is possible to reduce problems. 

For gardeners across the globe, English gardens are renowned. Their reputation for being the most romantic, beautifully planted and idyllic spaces a gardener could hope for has spread far and wide. But how do you define a quintessentially English garden? Say the words and the mind immediately conjures up certain images: arbours and pergolas dripping with rambling roses; herbaceous borders with sky-blue spires of delphiniums, York-stone paving and clipped yew hedges. There are some features that no self-respecting English garden should be without, the essential elements that make the country’s gardens so iconic – here are our must-haves for that dreamy English garden look.

The All About Plants category debuted in the Great Pavilion at RHS Chelsea 2022. This year, six gardens supported by Project Giving Back and designed in collaboration with a UK charity, will be on display. A grief garden, a skate park with a focus on edible planting, and a vibrant design that champions good gut health are just a snapshot of the gardens putting plants at the forefront of the design and keeping hard landscape at a minimum.

Away from the Show Gardens on Main Avenue, the Sanctuary Gardens offer plenty of inspiration and often on a more achievable scale. A garden that honours 200 years of the National Gallery, a family space that can bounce back from heavy rainfall, and a sensory haven that supports the emotional wellbeing for children undergoing cancer treatment, feature in 2024’s line up.

Among the herbaceous perennials we enjoy in gardens year-to-year are some that grown from seed go on to flower within 12 months, making these cost-effective and sustainable choices for new plantings.

The Main Avenue of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the heart of the iconic event. An extraordinary opportunity for talented newcomers and experienced designers alike to showcase innovation, creativity and the transformative power of a garden space in the heart of the city and watched by an audience of millions. Tom Massey is back after his 2023 Chelsea Flower Show success, this year partnering with Je Ahn, and familiar faces Ann-Marie Powell, Matthew Childs, Tom Stewart-Smith and Robert Myers are designing show gardens supported by Project Giving Back. 

An established hedge is a valuable commodity well worth taking good care of, but even then eventually it may grow too large. Deciduous hedges however can usually be rejuvenated, given a little patience.

With his brother Chris, Paul Blom selects premium bulbs to be sold to discerning customers by the family company, Bloms Bulbs.

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2024 makes its anticipated return to the spring season this year, taking place between 21 – 25 May 2024. Discover our coverage of the gardens and other attractions this year.

With his partner Graham Robeson, Alan Gray has developed Norfolk’s East Ruston Old Vicarage into a remarkable 32-acre garden. From colourful crocus to cheerful narcissus, bulbs are vital to their borders.

From the traditional bunch of classic red roses, to a theatrical spectacle of fern fronds and striking blooms, a bouquet of flowers can be a timeless or show stopping gesture of friendship, celebration, or romance. Yet, not all bouquets are created equal. Sustainability credentials, community impact, artistic craft and founder vision may be paramount considerations when choosing where to source your flowers, but we’ve taken the thorn out of the task by rounding up a list of pioneering florists around the country who are creatively inventive, sustainability-minded and will deliver a bouquet worthy of any special occasion. 

Anyone in search of planting ideas for their garden in the colder months is spoilt for choice when it comes to sources of inspiration. Up and down Britain there are sterling examples of gardens planted for winter interest: Cambridge University Botanic Garden boasts one of the earliest; Wakehurst Place is home to one of the more recent; then there’s Bodnant, Dunham Massey, the Savill Garden – the list goes on. One thing they have in common though is that they’re all quite large, and gardeners could be forgiven for feeling they need a separate ‘winter area’ or hefty acreage to create anything worthwhile in their own plots. Not so, says David Jordan, senior gardener at Anglesey Abbey, who cares for its well-known Winter Garden and has a host of winter plants to recommend that will easily integrate into your existing garden.

Conifers may have a history reaching back 300 million years and cover wide stretches of the northern nemisphere but as garden plants they have long been out of favour. That may be changing. Innovative use at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show last year demonstrated how conifers can add structure to a garden in a relaxed way. 

Witch hazels (Hamamelis) are one of winter’s most distinctive shrubs, their quirky, spidery blooms making them instantly recognisable even before you’ve breathed in their scent. At their peak, these are shrubs that make a lasting impression.

While flowers are so often fleeting, foliage will keep a garden display going for many months. And this is especially true of plants with variegated foliage, splashed yellow, cream or white. It can induce one of those ‘Marmite moments’ – you either love it or hate it – but the choice is so wide that there is surely a variegated plant to suit all tastes and every location. These plants can be used to great effect to illuminate a shady spot, add contrast to an otherwise green backdrop, act as a focal point or provide year-round structural interest. Try one of our ten favourites and you may well be converted.

Susie’s abundant ten-acre garden at Coton Manor in Northamptonshire is filled with vibrant and distinctive bulbs each spring, from the first glimmer of aconites to late-flowering tulips.

Mat Reese is head gardener at Malverleys in North Hampshire, where, with its owners, he has designed and developed a modern English flower garden over the past decade.

Peach leaf curl is a fungal disease that distorts the leaves of peaches and nectarines, and sometimes also apricots. The leaves crumple and thicken, and often have red blistery patches. Ultimately they fall off, and if your peach tree only has a handful of leaves left, it’s obvious that it won’t perform well.

Even if you’re growing on a small scale, rotating your crops is important. Grow the same crop in the same soil over and over again and you’re inviting problems, like a build-up of pests and diseases, or nutritional deficiencies in the soil. Another advantage of moving crops around your plot is that you can follow one crop with another that likes growing in the conditions the previous crop left behind: a win-win situation.

Many gardeners dread fruit pruning for fear it is complicated but there are a couple of simple rules that make things easier. Arm yourself with sharp bypass secateurs, and some sturdy gloves if you’re pruning gooseberries, to protect your hands from their spines.

Taking root cuttings is a great way to propagate herbaceous perennials during the colder months while the plants are dormant. The process is simple and effective: it can yield lots of healthy and vigorous new plants from just one parent plant. Try it with Japanese anemones, oriental poppies, verbascum, acanthus and drumstick Primula denticulata.

Bare-root roses (those that are dug up from the nursery’s fields during dormancy and come without soil around their roots) are delivered from November onwards and can be planted throughout the winter. Now is the time to order for the widest choice of varieties and, come summer, the reward will be the most colourful, fragrant and quintessentially English garden flowers there are.

Edible gardener Mark Diacono: These animals are impossibly cute so to get rid of moles is even more of an unsavoury undertaking than it might be. In any event, trying to get rid of moles may prove a futile, as well as an unpleasant exercise because they travel about using a network of semi-permanent tunnels deep underground. They dig shallower channels nearer to the surface when they search for food.

Wisteria pruning is done twice a year, first in July or August and then in January or February. During summer, the pruning involves shortening the long, whippy tendrils this fast-growing climber flings out, cutting them back to five or six leaves.

If you’re wondering how to move plants, remember that deciduous trees and shrubs – those that lose their leaves during winter – are dormant now, so this is the best time to uproot them. Any time during autumn and spring when the branches are bare will  minimise the upheaval to them. Evergreens can be moved too, but you are better off waiting until late March for those, when the soil is starting to warm up again.

‘Marvels of Monmouthshire’ takes in the lovely scenery of this part of the world and a selection of special gardens, chosen by Sisley Garden Tours to be in their full summer glory. Many of the gardens have been featured in The English Garden magazine.

As 2024 gets underway, we’ve taken inspiration from Janus, the god of beginnings, transitions and time, who looks both forwards and back. Our gardens have all featured in our pages in the past, but we revisit them here and take a closer look at how they’ve developed over time, and how they’re changing now their owners have new challenges to contend with.

This is a month for planning ahead. What seeds do you need to order? Do tools need cleaning? And does the greenhouse need a good tidy? By the end of January it’s time to start pruning wisteria to ensure a showstopping display of delicate blooms. It’s also time to plant bareroot roses, take hardwood cuttings, plan this year’s crop rotation and force rhubarb. Start the year off as you mean to go on.