Your Perfect Garden

The arrival of spring, with its longer, brighter days, signals the time when many of us head into our gardens, relishing the chance to bask in the glow of the sunshine. Plants and flowers are beginning to spring into life, and the warmer weather brings with it the opportunity for entertaining outdoors with family and friends. If you’re looking forward to giving your outdoor space a refresh, you’ll find plenty of ideas for your garden transformation over the coming pages. Whether you’re searching for inspiring design advice, expert planting tips, or ways to maximise the use of your outdoor living space, you won’t be disappointed. Enjoy!…

Are you on the lookout for some modern garden ideas? Whether you’re ready for a complete outdoor overhaul or just after a few quick tricks to make your space more welcoming, there are plenty of ways to begin your garden’s contemporary transformation right here. Whether you want to create an outdoor living room or kitchen, add ambient lighting and stylish colour schemes, or even try your movie night outdoors, it’s easy to make a few simple changes to your space. Contemporary gardens are often a great choice for busy families, who want to enjoy their garden without hours of maintenance involved. Think sleek, pared-back designs, natural materials, minimal colour schemes, even minimal planting. Work with straight lines, and if in doubt, take it out! Chill out with an outdoor cinema…

Ferns gained popularity in the Victorian age, when gardeners used them to mimic woodland spots under the shade of trees and shrubs. Stumperies – like rockeries, but made from tree trunks and logs – were the fashion, interplanted with ferns or combined with rocks and water to reflect a more craggy natural landscape. ALL SHAPES AND SIZES Ferns come in an amazing range of textures, colours, sizes and shapes, so do take the trouble to get to know them in all their splendid glory by visiting a specialist grower during summer months. As well as British native ferns that are ideal for planting in drifts in shady corners, tall tree ferns are good to dot around to create an exotic mood in a sheltered spot. These will thrive in dappled…

After extending and renovating their home, which took around nine months, Caroline and Tim Norris decided to take a break for a couple of years before turning their attention to the garden. ‘We are both complete garden novices, so we really needed to think about what we wanted and do lots of research,’ says Caroline. The garden was a good size, stocked with mature shrubs and trees, but the couple rarely ventured past the patio seating area, which meant all that space was going to waste. ‘We went to the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival as a starting point,’ says Caroline, ‘then we used Pinterest to find images to illustrate a wish list of what we had in mind for the garden. ‘Luckily, we knew a landscape gardener, Simon…

Cottage gardens are all about creating a beautiful space that’s packed with soft flowers and scent. From overflowing borders filled with cottage garden plants to pretty accessories and seating that adds instant charm, there are plenty of ways to create a cottage-style vibe in your own garden. And, if you’re the owner of an urban garden, don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to live in a picture-postcard thatched cottage in the English countryside to create a cottage garden scheme! All of these ideas will work just as well on a smaller scale for a romantic, flower-filled city garden as they would in a larger rural space. Cottage gardens typically have an informal planting scheme featuring lots of different colours for a space that’s packed with interest. Flowerbeds are bigger than…

Care tip For best flowering, mulch and fertilise soil in late winter Top tip Keep the roots shaded with a layer of pebbles around the base of the plant. Top tip Install a wire network up the wall onto which you can train your roses.…