CATEGORIES

The bad and the beautiful

Gardeners have a fraught relationship with wild plants and weeds, but there is a growing movement to appreciate the charms and biodiversity benefits of these native plants and early colonisers. To offer a fresh perspective, we’ve elevated typical uninvited garden guests to be the stars of exquisite cut-flower displays, inspired by art and bound to change your mind

Nature's way

With an almost imperceptible hand, designer Dan Pearson has conjured a dramatic landscape garden from 20 acres of Connecticut wilderness

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

If you've despaired of why botanists keep changing the names of your favourite plants, columnist Ken Thompson explains the logic behind the taxonomic tinkering

TOTAL IMMERSION

Sara Jane Rothwell has softened the hard landscaping of this sloping plot with rich planting that contrasts with the repeated use of Corten-steel features

Exotic mix

In his own small Surrey garden, designer Robert Stacewicz has assembled an eclectic mix of exotic plants that are well suited for a changing climate

Sum of the manse

For this walled garden on the edge of the Cairngorms, designer Jonathan Snow has created a sloping parterre filled with flowers and food

Picture this

Drawing on the wildflowers she loved as a child, Margarida Maia has created a garden in central Portugal that is now an Instagram sensation

HELENA PETTIT

The high-octane karate kid who is shaking up RHS Shows on her life as bouncer, staying calm in a crisis and engaging children and new entrants to gardening

Where the wild things are

In rural West Sussex, Chris Moss has created a sustainable, rustic-chic garden that hums with wildlife and shimmers subtly with modern cottage-style planting

CROCOSMIA

With their striking sword-like foliage and dazzling flowers, crocosmias bring a bright burst of high-summer colour to the garden

Balancing act

For this modern Dutch house, Piet Oudolf has combined richly planted roof gardens with the calm of a micro forest

Twice as nice

Designer Sue Townsend has blended two cottage gardens into one with meadow-style planting that drifts dreamily through the different spaces

Change of tune

In this small Dutch garden, designer Jelle Koot has used a simple rhythm of repeated plants to create a calming, cohesive scheme

Gathering attention

As garden designers start to reappraise lilacs, we take a look at the fascinating French history of the once ubiquitous English garden shrub and re-examine some forgotten cultivars

Nature first

Around the Neoclassical home of Jade and Julian Dunkerton, Urquhart & Hunt has designed a garden that works in harmony with a variety of wildlife

Mixed blessings

In a quiet corner of Essex, designer Stefano Marinaz has replaced a lawn and parking space with a naturalistic garden of mixed planting that offers interest all year

Wild dreams

The mix of varied growing conditions in this ebulliently planted garden in East Sussex helped to forge an ecological vision and approach to gardening that benefits wildlife

PAOLO PEJRONE

The legendary Italian designer, who thinks of himself primarily as a gardener, on the importance of keeping gardens bold and simple, and working with nature in adapting to climate change

Pale and interesting

A sense of tranquillity is the guiding principle in this beautifully realised white garden, with an elegant, pared-back planting palette

GEUM

Offering flowers from late spring into summer, this varied genus of hardy perennials is deservedly growing in popularity

True grit

Swedish plantsman Peter Korn is a pioneer of growing in sand, and his glorious new garden near Malmö is testament to its success

CECILY WITHALL

Kew's first female climbing arborist since the 1980s, Cecily is part of a team that maintains the botanical garden's impressive collection of 12,000 trees

ADDED INTEREST?

Columnist Ken Thompson urges caution over so-called miracle garden products; they're not always all they're cracked up to be

June plants

In early summer, head gardener Åsa Gregers-Warg is spoilt for choice with a fabulous mix of richly coloured and delicate flowers, fabulous foliage and silky tactile grasses

A WIDER VISION

Landscape designer Chris Beardshaw has created a fresh garden and landscape on ahilly and neglected site in the Cotswolds

GROWING FOR GOLD

From first-timers to multiple medal winners, we talk to five of the nurseries exhibiting in Chelsea's Great Pavilion this year to find out more about the plans and preparations they are making to ensure a winning display

SHOW GARDEN PROFILES

We talk to the designers behind a selection of this year's show gardens about what has influenced and inspired their choices

In at the deep end

A new nursery that specialises in water plants is facing one of its biggest and most exciting challenges this year exhibiting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the first time

Granular detail

In work that explores texture and variation, wood artist Darren Appiagyei showcases the natural beauty of his raw materials warts and all

Fleeting beauties

Cherry blossom is a cultural icon in Japan, and a school teacher there has made it his lifelong mission to ensure the longevity of the Japanese cherry tree by raising a series of remarkable hybrids