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.

CONTRIBUTORS

Welcome

The English Garden

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

Jamey’s favourite gardens

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

Things to Do • Keep up to date in the garden with our monthly guide to key gardening tasks

Checklist

Nature to Note • The wonder of wildlife in the garden and countryside this month

Tipping the Scales • A bumper year for the UK’s rarest lizard

That Perfect Something • Find the ideal present for gardeners and garden lovers with our inspiring selection of Christmas gifts, from affordable stocking fillers to high-end treats

WHITE MAGIC • Tucked behind an unassuming facade, gardens lie within gardens and moats sit within moats, offset by snow-topped topiary, at Beckley Park in Oxfordshire

A Legend of MELROSE • At Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott’s former home in the Scottish Borders, winter still holds plenty of interest – as well as jobs to do – for head gardener Tim Owen

Yours for THE DAY • Despite its grandeur, classical statuary and William Kent landscaping, there is a quiet intimacy to Rousham that makes the visitor believe it is theirs alone, especially in the quiet still of an icy winter’s morning

Distorted MIRROR • Gardyne Castle in Angus was built in the 16th century, but over the centuries Stuart, Georgian and Arts & Crafts additions have created an eclectic effect. The challenge for designer Michael Innes has been to make a garden to reflect the castle’s many faces

DRAWING The Line • Designer George Carter has applied his artistic sensibility to his Norfolk garden, at Silverstone Farm, where a baroque structure creates enclosures, focal points and vistas, offering up a soothing geometry at its finest in winter

BOUNDS of Possibility • George Carter’s advice on choosing and growing plants for formal hedging and topiary

Sunny SIDE UP • Winter is here, but step into Mona Abboud’s wonderful North London back garden and you’d never know it. This joyously exotic space indulges her passion for plants from the Mediterranean, South Africa and Australasia – corokia in particular

Star TURN • Mona Abboud shares her tips on growing Corokia

Christmas STYLING • The florist by Royal Appointment creates seasonal arrangements at Bridget Elworthy’s Wardington Manor, explaining his creative process to Jacky Hobbs

Christmas Stars • London-based garden designer and plantsman Alexander Hoyle selects ten outstanding winter-flowering plants to introduce a note of seasonal cheer

Not Just for Christmas • The spruce genus includes the traditional Christmas tree, but these surprisingly diverse evergreens look good in any season. Their fresh scent, gorgeous colours, diversity of form and handsome looks make them year-round performers in any garden

Success with spruce • John Massey shares his expertise on growing these lovely conifers and keeping them happy

Cups & Saucers • Jim Cable continues his exploration of garden-worthy plant families, this time delving into Ranunculaceae – better known as the buttercup family

The Reviewer • Knowledgeable names in horticulture share their recommended reads in time for Christmas

Shelf Life • The earliest botanical books date back to the 15th century. Amazingly, copies still exist and can...