The English Garden

Annette Warren Annette is a garden writer and blogger at gardenvisitoruk.com. She also works as an assistant and stylist with photographer Clive Nichols. She visits Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen’s garden on page 30. Geoff Stebbings Gardener and author Geoff is currently creating a one-acre garden around his home in Ireland, where he’s enjoying the novelty of a blank canvas and acid soil. He writes about cyclamen on page 69. Zara Napier Photographing unknown gardens and meeting passionate gardeners is what motivates Zara to travel with her camera. She photographs Jane Steward’s medlar collection in Norfolk on page 105.…

I write this in a state of distraction, because my mind is really on my bulb order. Am I the only one who thinks of little else at this time of year and finds it hard to concentrate on the task at hand because images of bulbs I’d like to buy and grow keep popping into my head? I’m surely not the only person who has a bulging shopping basket on the bulb supplier’s website, to which I’m constantly adding more bulbs (then seeing the new total, and sheepishly having to take something else out). Earlier this year I attended a Great Dixter online symposium on ‘layered planting’. One key takeaway: have more plants, especially bulbs, which you can put under and around all your other plants to create multiple…

IN FLOWER NOW Actaea simplex Atropurpurea Group Look past its unprepossessing common name of ‘bugbane’ and actaea actually has plenty of appeal. You might recall a time when it was known as cimicifuga, but either way its tall autumnal wands of white flowers are the main draw, produced from August through to October. Best of all, they are sweetly scented – a sought-after quality for the autumn months. Atropurpurea Group boasts dark purple leaves and stems, taking on the best colour when grown in a sunny spot, although it will also grow well in dappled shade. ‘Brunette’ is very similar and another good choice.…

Tom & Sue Stuart-Smith The award-winning garden designer and his psychotherapist wife on their shared community gardening project at home Tom: We met during our first week at Cambridge University. Sue was reading English and I was reading Natural Sciences, but it soon became clear that I wasn’t much of a natural scientist! My eye-opening moment happened at 18 when I went to Italy for the first time and realised I was motivated by the environment and how places are lived in. I was already a keen gardener, but it wasn’t until this trip that I considered gardening as a career. I was also inspired by the enthusiasm, freshness and brilliance of well-established landscape architects such as Lanning Roper and Geoffrey Jellicoe. So, after graduating, I went to Manchester to…

Eythrope Walled Garden Tour Buckinghamshire, until 9 October Enjoy a guided tour of Eythrope, the Buckinghamshire garden created by Miss Alice de Rothschild, every Wednesday until 9 October. This private garden is open to visitors only through these guided tours, which take in the four-acre walled garden, glasshouses and orchard. It’s still a productive garden on a scale that’s rarely seen today, and produce grown here is used in Waddesdon’s restaurants, hotel and markets. The garden itself showcases traditional techniques. Tickets: £38.50. waddesdon.org.uk Working Dixter through the Year Online from October to June Join Fergus Garrett and the Great Dixter team for an online symposium that takes participants through the year at this iconic garden. Learn about timing and prioritising gardening tasks and all the tricks to help you create…

October is a month of change – for the garden and for the weather. It begins with the lingering vestiges of summer, the odd soft warm day that still demands ice cream, and finishes with everything wrapped up and tucked away for the winter. It’s always something of a judgement call to know just when to wrap up the tree ferns and haul the lemon trees into the greenhouse. I like to eke out every last moment of enjoyment from these summer specials, while always keeping a close eye on the weather forecast. The lemons love being outside in the summer, as do so smaller tender plants like aeoniums, echeveria and all the pelargoniums, and I think it does them a power of good. But the weather forecast will announce…