He's a blooming talent

A rising star of the gardening world on chicken-friendly gardening and admirable women

For peat's sake

A bog can store 10 times more carbon than a forest; calling a halt to the use of peat-based products in horticulture is long overdue

Coming home to roost

The chickens are reprieved and it’s keep calm and carry on with the calving

A sonnet to spring

Once believed to be summoned from slumber by birdsong, spring–from gambolling lambs to pale wood anemones and the rabbity-nosed velvet of ash buds– is a season of timeless joy for John Lewis-Stempel

A play on contrasts

The Old Rectory, Litton Cheney, Dorset With the help of Arne Maynard, the many and varying elements of this four-acre garden, once the home of engraver Reynolds Stone, have been beautifully drawn together.

Isolation – How To Do It

With humour, impressive variety and a pertinent portrait of a doctor in plague-ridden 17th-century Italy, galleries are coming up trumps online

Seeing the woods for the trees

The Government has promised to plant 60 million trees by 2024. It’s a laudable aim, but there are taxing questions to answer about practicalities, such as funding, work force, which species, where to get them from and where to plant them, observes John Grimshaw

Lustrous lives

Caroline Bugler is mesmerised by the work of a husband and wife who were among the most inventive artists of their generation

Somewhere, over the rainbow

Things were going so well–but the health of the housing market before the coronavirus crisis hit indicates that it can and will recover

For love or money

They have evolved from knapsacks to coin purses and to today’s card holders, but does the wallet have a future in our increasingly cashless society, asks Roderick Easdale

It's a brave new world

Some plays seem to be standing up remarkably well to screening and even cast new perspectives on old favourites

In with the new(builds)

They’re energy efficient, with modern features and contemporary design, and you can move in straight away. Is now the time to buy new?

Family politics

Family politics Descendants of famous MPs tell Eleanor Doughty what it’s like to grow up in a house where politics dominate the day to day

Commanding silence

In the second of two articles, John Goodall looks at the post-Second World War restoration of Llandaff Cathedral and its outstanding collection of 20th-century furnishings

A gentleman and a player

The actor on making an Archers villain loveable and being cast as a ‘slightly dodgy toff’

The art of going online

Galleries and dealers are using the difficulty of the lockdown to showcase their wares in virtual forms, from wartime oils to a cleaning lady and a Turk

Swimming with otters

Amy Jeffs dips into the life and legacy of St Cuthbert, patron saint of Durham Cathedral

The hills are alive

Three properties with ample space for entertaining prove that the best parties happen outside of London

Not to be sniffed at

Whatever its name–ramsons, gypsy’s onions, bear leek, snake’s food, stinking Jenny–wild garlic makes for a perfect (and pungent) vivid green pesto, eulogises Tom Parker Bowles

Third time's the charm

The cathedral at Llandaff was begun exactly 900 years ago. In the first of two articles, John Goodall looks at the history of this outstanding building before

Creative destruction

The felling of seven mature beech in the storms of 1987 offered the chance to make a rare and charming garden, says George Plumptre

Where shepherds watch

The striking, dark-grey Herdwick sheep, with its appealing white face and strong homing instinct, is integral to the culture and economy of the Lake District, but farmers feel their way of life is under threat. Tessa Waugh reports

A neo-Romantic and Modernist

Peyton Skipwith considers the work of John Piper (1903–92) and assesses the enduring quality of his romantic vision

Whiter shades of pale

Trying to choose a neutral? You’ll be presented with a sea of confusing choices. Amelia Thorpe asks leading colour experts for advice on plotting a course

A lover of the meadows and the woods

Forever burdened with his daffodils, Wordsworth still remains one of the great shapers of the English-speaking mind and a true champion of Nature 250 years on, says Adam Nicolson

England's Hidden Beauty

On April 23, COUNTRY LIFE and Charles Stanley will host tours of Arley Hall and Gardens, Cheshire, followed by afternoon tea

The boy that sings on Duncton Hill

One of our most accomplished writers of the early 20th century, Hilaire Belloc had a lifelong love affair with West Sussex. His words still echo in the hills 150 years after his birth, finds Jack Watkins

Light the touch paper

Arundel Castle, West Sussex Head gardener Martin Duncan and his team are setting the borders on fire with bold and innovative plantings, finds Tiffany Daneff

A pleasure for the birds

Owletts, Cobham, Kent A property of the National Trust Intensely proud of his Kent ancestry, Sir Herbert Baker restored this unpretentious family house. Clive Aslet revisits the unexpected home of one of Britain’s outstanding Imperial architects

The sound of music

If you want a change from Glyndebourne, Garsington and The Grange, but Glastonbury is not to your taste, try Europe’s best classical and opera festivals, suggests Carla Passino