Innholdsfortegnelse for Special 2025 i Gardens Illustrated Magazine

Every year, for our special Summer issue, we like to focus on an idea that celebrates our love of gardening, and this edition is dedicated to flowers. Whether you enjoy growing and designing with beautiful blooms, cutting and arranging or even pressing them, the features this month are sure to re-ignite your passion, and fuel your interest in a fascinating diversity of possibilities. Our first stop is a nostalgic visit to the walled garden of Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex, where the creative spirit of the Bloomsbury Group still flourishes under head gardener Harry Hoblyn (page 20). There’s a trip to Wales to see the garden of plant collectors Roger and Jenny Lloyd (page 46); and to Cornwall to see Florence and James Kennedy of Petalon flower farm (page 78).…

This summer, the rose that had never flowered, the one I had long ago marked for the compost heap, suddenly came into bloom. Not only did it do so splendidly, with half a dozen buds opening in succession, it turned out to be the much sought-after Rosa Munstead Wood (= ‘Ausbernard’). To see those plump buds opening into cushions of deepest burgundy velvet has made me happier than almost anything else this year. The slightly-too-thin stems of my Munstead Wood and their heavyweight blooms sit close to my other 2025 gardening surprise: the soft caramel, white and egg-yolk-yellow of Iris ‘Benton Susan’, the flower I thought I could never grow. This garden has always felt too shaded for irises, but my fears have been proved wrong. All the Benton irises…

You might not have seen Georgie Newbery – flower farmer, florist, teacher, mentor, writer and communicator par excellence – in the flesh but if you love growing cut flowers you’ve probably met her online on one of her many social media meeting places. Since 2010, when she and her husband Fabrizio Bocca started Common Farm Flowers on a seven-acre smallholding in Somerset, she has been the welcoming face (framed with large red spectacles) of the endeavour. “When I decided to take the business online, Fabrizio agreed but on condition that I would never use his real name or the children’s names or show our farmhouse,” she explains. “I thought he was being over protective but actually it was a brilliant decision. It means all our social media work is about…

Before Keith Kralik met Rachel Parri in 2015, he’d tried many lines of work. “I’ve been an odd job holder my entire life,” he says. “I’ve always had the itch to do different things.” It seems as much of a surprise to him as anyone else that he’s now one half of Flower Press Studio, creating beautiful botanical art from pressed flowers. “It’s pretty random,” he admits. “The biggest achievement of my art career before this was drawing stick figures.” The Colorado couple, who came together over a love of hiking, bought a house together in Denver in 2019. When Covid struck in 2020, they both got furloughed, and used the time to transform their garden so Rachel could indulge in her passion for growing. “She’s the master gardener,” says…

HANDMADE IN THE UK Luxury Cushion, palm navy, £60, Armadillo Sun, 01580 753903, armadillosun.com RECYCLED FILLING Guadeloupe Noir Outdoor Cushion, £55, Warner House, 0330 055 2995, warner-house.com FULLY WATERPROOF Waterproof Scatter Cushion, rust and tangerine, £89 each, Bridgman, 020 8804 7474, bridgman.co.uk REMOVABLE COVERS Streetwize Teal Fern Outdoor Cushions, £40 for four, Argos, argos.co.uk COUNTRY CHARM Yard Chesil Check Outdoor Cotton Square Cushion, £22, Dunelm, dunelm.com MIX AND MATCH Zebra Outdoor Cushion, sage/off white, £60, Nordic Nest, 029 2271 1801, nordicnest.com PALM PRINT Hawaii Outdoor Cushion Forest Green, £10, Furn, 0113 543 1381, furn.com CALMING NEUTRAL Abingdon Outdoor Cushion, taupe, £45, Cox & Cox, 0330 333 2123, coxandcox.co.uk BLOCK PRINTED Pattani Outdoor Cushion, Indian red, £95, Oka, 0333 004 2042, oka.com To find beautiful garden furniture you can leave outside…

I wish I could re-do Dad’s funeral flowers. He died years before flowers recruited me, and I just obediently pointed to one of the standard photos on the funeral director’s laminated sheet. It might as well have been a box of washing powder for all the relevance it had to him. If I were to do it now, he would have barley and potatoes in a pair of wellies, and there would be a copy of the Racing Post tucked into a corner, as well as a cricket ball and a wicket. It would all be held together with baler twine and probably smell faintly of Labrador. It couldn’t belong to anyone else. I’ve been wondering what started the unhappy shift from individuality to a state where families ask me…

Éva Németh Éva photographs Sarah Statham’s arrangements, page 54. “Sarah only ever uses British flowers. That paired with the beautiful Yorkshire light, this feature was an absolute treat to capture.” Stephen Anderton Stephen meets plant fanatics Roger and Jenny Lloyd, page 46. “There’s nothing like talking to serious gardeners about why they do what they do. Don’t you just love it?” Emma Inglis Emma visits Petalon in Cornwall, page 78. “Florence and James’s devotion to sustainability and community reminds us that good things grow slowly, with intention, hard work and love.”…

30 JULY Family Cyanotype Learn to make your own cyanotype. £15. 11am-12pm. Chelsea Physic Garden, 66 Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3 4HS. Tel 020 7352 5646, chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk 4 AUGUST Biodiversity Study Day At Great Dixter with ecologist Andy Phillips and head gardener Fergus Garrett. £180, including lunch. 10am-4pm. Northiam, Rye, East Sussex TN31 6PH. Tel 01797 253107, greatdixter.co.uk 9 AUGUST Late Summer Workshop Arrange late-summer favourites from the cutting garden. £39.95. 10.30am-12.30pm. Balgove Larder, Strathtyrum, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SF.balgove.com For more events this month and throughout summer, scan the QR code with your phone camera or visit gardensillustrated.com/events-and-shows…

For Sarah Statham, perhaps more widely known through her beguiling Instagram account Simply By Arrangement, buying a bunch of flowers from her local florist on the way home from work was always more than just a colourful purchase. Back in the early 2000s, working in the demanding world of criminal law, these weekly blooms were an important and uplifting marker to the end of the working week. But these regular flower indulgences also nurtured a long-held aspiration to work with flowers, and so when the threat of job losses loomed, the moment seemed right to explore that dream. Sarah’s first step was to dig up the front garden and create raised beds for a range of flowers. She also spent time learning the craft of flower arranging through books and…

Milli Proust, Alma | Proust 1 Rosa Olivia Rose Austin (= ‘Ausmixture’) Roses are great for the vase if you cut them just as the buds have opened into a still-closed cup, and first thing in the morning when the plant is still hydrated. This particular cultivar is robust and prolific in both part shade and sun, and always my first and last to flower. Height and spread: 1m × 1m. RHS H6, USDA 4a-10b†. 2 Schizanthus x wisetonensis Dr. Badger’s Hybrids Mixed Also known as poor man’s orchid, this annual has fern-like leaves and sprays of little flowers that look like butterflies. It comes in a range of pinks, whites and lilacs. This is one of the longest-lasting cut flowers we grow, with a vase life of up to…

The best flower books, the crossword and the big idea IN FULL FLOWER: INSPIRED DESIGNS BY FLORAL'S NEW CREATIVES by Gemma and Andrew Ingalls Rizzoli, £32.50 ISBN 978-0847858699 In Full Flower is a visual feast for floral lovers. Its breathtaking photography is the work of photographers Gemma and Andrew Ingalls and features 21 influential floral designers across the USA, who all share a more natural aesthetic. Each is introduced with a brief biography and insight into their creative process and inspirations. Full colour spreads showcase the designer’s floral masterpieces alongside working, studio and portrait shots. Its hardcover, and the 300 full pages of photographs, clearly define it as a coffee-table book, but one I still refer to for inspiration – I have drawn ideas on colour palettes, plants to grow,…

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…

I plan to experiment with containerised hedge bindweed, which flowers endlessly and brings in delicate plume moths Earliest garden memory Watching my mother carefully unravel cutting material from her handbag. Her sunny windowsills were a production line of rooting activity in wobbly yoghurt pots. Like my mum, I often carry bareroot divisions as pocket gifts. Who has inspired your career So many people, but especially Stephanie Davies of Quaker Gardens for her quiet encouragement of me to transition from accountancy, and her way of ‘invisible gardening’. And Leigh Chappell for inviting me to be a part of the Strawberry Hill House Flower Festival. It was a necessary nudge, and I’m now hooked. Who are your horticultural heroes and why? I’ve long been in awe of the lightness, artistry, restraint and…

When we think about choosing plants for their flowers in the garden, we almost always think first about colour. Whole books have been written about using and combining plants with colour in mind. But colour is only one facet of a flower’s characteristics – their shape and form can be equally important. Imagine a British hay meadow in full flower in early summer, with sheets of starry white ox-eye daisies and drifts of airy, goblet-shaped yellow buttercups interspersed with the slender plumes of red-pink sorrel. Colour plays a crucial role in the pictorial effect, but if all the shapes of the flowers of the different species were all the same, then it would be nowhere near as interesting as having a diversity of flower forms. Exactly the same point could…