Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2025 i Gardens Illustrated Magazine

May is one of the busiest times for gardeners, with our own burgeoning gardens starting to really hit their stride and countless open gardens, plant fairs and flower shows to visit. In this bumper issue, you’ll find our big preview of the greatest (garden) show on earth – the RHS Chelsea Flower Show (page 85). We’ve got everything you need to know before the show, from a run-down of the main highlights, trends, themes and things to watch out for (page 86), to profiles of the top show gardens and designers (page 90), plus your chance to win two tickets to the show (page105). We’re also asking some tough questions of the show including reports on what it actually takes to win Gold, and how it can all go wrong…

• Tough and easy to grow, elders will persist in sub-optimum conditions, but perform better if treated well. A sunny spot will result in a vigorous, floriferous specimen, and although shade is tolerated, growth will be slower. • Elders prefer rich, moist, well-drained soil with a fairly neutral pH. They tend to do well on clay, but dislike actively boggy areas, and because they resent drying out, they struggle on light, free-draining sand or thin, chalky soils. • Elders are best planted in winter when they are dormant, giving them time to establish and reducing the need for watering in their first season. If they are planted in growth, they should be watered regularly and not allowed to dry out. • Dig a square hole twice the size of the…

CONNECT THE DOTS The best-known Cedric Morris flower paintings are brilliant compositions of grey poppies, shimmering irises and bright, beacon-like lilies. Lesser known are a couple of largely green works featuring dragon arums. With these paintings in mind, it seemed fitting to have a go at a green arrangement. I picked up this glazed pot for a bargain, as it had wire looped under its rim and had lost some flakes of glaze, but these imperfections simply add extra layers of intrigue. How to achieve the look Container and composition I chose to really emphasise the emerald palette of this arrangement by using a glazed Castelnaudary terracotta pot. The ornamental shape and coloured glaze of this kind of pot has heightened decoration compared to a typical terracotta plant pot, making…

INBRIEF What Wildlife garden with water at its heart, by the coast. Where Carmarthenshire. Size One third of an acre. Soil Sandy clay, neutral to acid. Climate Temperate. Hardiness zone USDA 9a. The House on Stilts is the very model of a small wildlife garden. A palm tree is home to dormice who use it like a penthouse flat, and the pond has housed all sorts from moorhens and ducks, to dragonfly larvae, a water rail that returns each winter and, once, an extremely large grass snake. During the day, the trees are alive with songbirds, and by night bats swoop through the space. What is surprising is that it is as far as you can get from the dyedin-the-wool image you might expect of a space dedicated to wildlife.…

The words ‘AI’ and ‘gardens’ don’t naturally seem to go together. Gardening is human, physical, sensory – an act of care and patience, an interaction with the natural world that shouldn’t be rushed, automated or digitised. AI isn’t a gardener. It doesn’t feel the texture of soil between its fingers. It cannot experience ‘qualia’ – those ineffable sensory moments that define our human experience: the intoxicating perfume of a rose on a summer evening, the satisfying roughness of ancient oak bark beneath fingertips, the quality of light filtering through new beech leaves in spring. What it can do is help us gather information and insights, allowing us to work more sustainably. Already, AI is being used to identify climate resilient characteristics in plants, monitor climate change and reduce waste in…

James Horner James creates three container displays for early summer, page 62. “While the garden at Benton End is being prepared for replanting, it’s great to be able to play out ideas in containers.” Sarah Cuttle Sarah photographs a glorious Welsh garden brimming with nature, page 76. “A delightful garden to spend a morning in, buzzing with the local wildlife, and in a beautiful part of the country.” Ciar Byrne Ciar looks at the role of volunteers at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, page 112. “It was fascinating to go behind the scenes and speak to those who give their time for free to make it possible.”…

FROM 2 MAY Unearthed: The Power of Gardening Discover how centuries of gardening have transformed the natural world in a new exhibition at the British Library until 10 August. £15. British Library, Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. events.bl.uk 19-25 MAY Chelsea in Bloom If you’re heading to Chelsea, be sure to explore the imaginative floral displays among the shops, restaurants and hotels in the surrounding streets. Free. Chelsea, London. Find details at chelseainbloom.co.uk 23-26 MAY Manchester Flower Festival Celebrate the start of summer with floral installations alongside entertainment and workshops across Manchester city centre all Bank Holiday weekend. instagram.com/mcrflowerfest For more events this month and throughout summer, scan the QR code with your phone camera or visit gardensillustrated.com/events-and-shows…

In my tiny, urban, outdoor space, there are almost as many plants in pots as there are in the ground. Small trees grow in terracotta, wallflowers and foxgloves in verdigris-patinated copper planters, and woody-stemmed herbs in zinc troughs. There are azaleas and conifers on the roof in large plastic pots, heavy enough not to blow away, but light enough not to do any structural damage. There are even a few with vegetables in. This garden would be less beautiful and less productive without its rows of earth-coloured pots. I have to admit to a love bordering on obsession with old, chipped terracotta, especially for cherished, ancient pelargoniums. The rust-red clay seems to flatter the deep reds and pale-pink petals of Pelargonium ‘Lord Bute’ and P. ‘Madame Auguste Nonin’. Of course,…

Earliest garden memory Entering imaginary worlds in my Nana’s garden. Her dilapidated greenhouse, overgrown with vines climbing through broken panes of glass, cobwebs, spiders and snails, became a wild jungle to explore. First plant love Passion flowers. I remember being captivated by their psychedelic flowers in our garden. They looked like nothing else I’d ever seen, and I thought that they must be from another planet. They still bring me so much joy and that childlike sense of wonder and awe. Who has inspired your career the most? Jo Wenham and Cathy Cordery at Wakehurst. On my first day of training I was told “Your job is to learn as much as you can, and have as much fun as possible in the process”. The support and encouragement I’ve had…

MARTHA STEWART’S GARDENING HANDBOOK by Martha Stewart Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins, £30 ISBN 978-0063323285 The first gardening guide from the legendary lifestyle guru Martha Stewart in more than 30 years. Featuring images from Martha’s personal gardens, it is filled with practical tips to help your garden flourish. GARDENING WITH SCENTED PLANTS by Tony Hall Kew Publishing, £30 ISBN 978-1842468364 A guide to more than 200 plants with scented flowers and foliage that will bring colour and interest to your garden (and attract bees, butterflies and birds) through the year. From the head of Temperate Collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the book is arranged by plant type and includes annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees. A WILDER WAY by Poppy Okotcha Bloomsbury Publishing, £18.99 ISBN 978-1526666512 The ecological grower…

Charlotte Harris Charlotte co-founded the values-driven landscape design practice Harris Bugg Studio with Hugo Bugg in 2017. She has won three Gold medals at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, as well as Best Show Garden in 2023. Fergus Garrett Fergus was appointed head gardener at Great Dixter by Christopher Lloyd in 1993 and is now CEO of the garden’s Charitable Trust. He was awarded an RHS Associate of Honour in 2008 and an RHS Victoria Medal of Honour in 2019. James Basson James lives in the South of France where he runs Scape Design, a practice for creating sustainable landscapes. The winner of four Chelsea Gold medals, he was awarded Best Show Garden in 2017. Anna Pavord Anna was The Independent’s gardening correspondent for 30 years and is the author…

ERYSIMUM MUTABILE Native to Crete, where it grows on limestone cliffs, this makes a low, evergreen sub-shrub. Tall tapers of flower are held in a halo above fine, grey-green foliage. Dark-purple buds open a soft gold and then change through pale yellow, apricot and pink to mauve as they age to pepper the flower spikes with mutable colour that is delightfully neither one thing nor the other. Grow without competition among thymes and sages. Cuttings are easily rooted in early summer and worth taking every three or four years as parent plants age and need replacement. Height and spread 50cm × 60cm Origin Crete. Conditions Free-draining soil; open position in full sun. Hardiness RHS H4, USDA 6a-10b†. Season of interest May - July. CENTRANTHUS LECOQII Growing in rubbly ground in…

It’s a substantial achievement, when your tenth RHS Chelsea Flower Show garden is actually to be your last. For Tom Hoblyn, creator of plant-rich, beautiful show gardens with fascinating back stories, this is exactly where he finds himself. But why is this his last show garden? “To be honest, it’s exhausting,” he says. “My first Chelsea was 2006, and that’s a long time to be doing these shows. I also see so much young talent coming through and it’s time I stepped aside and gave way to them.” This approach is quite normal for those who know Tom. A collaborator to the core, he gets excited when he talks about craftspeople, nursery owners or younger people. “I really believe that many younger people (under 30) are feeling a tech overwhelm,…

What is your book about? I wanted to create a book about permaculture that anyone can pick up and understand, even if they’ve never grown something before. A lot of answers to almost any problem in the garden come back to one thing: working with nature by embracing it. Permaculture has been around for a while, but it kind of got hijacked by hippies. I’m coming from logical, even critical thinking. People have also tried to over-complicate it. Ultimately, it is nature-inspired design. You’re creating gardens or beds that are inspired by patterns in nature. If you look at a forest, there are different layers. So if you’re planting an orchard, instead of just having the apple trees, look at what to plant underneath it. Permaculture isn’t a simple solution.…

GARDENS ILLUSTRATED JUNE • A modern cottage garden in Oxfordshire • The best hardy salvias to grow • John Little’s groundbreaking garden in Essex • A country garden with a contemporary twist by Tom Stuart-Smith • Bombproof plants that are really good doers PLUS Dan Pearson’s top ten plants for June, Charlotte Harris on imaginative ways with water and Nigel Slater on the joy of not relaxing in the garden…