April 2023 marks the 30th anniversary issue of Gardens Illustrated. We launched in April 1993, and are still going strong all these years later.
Here's a selection of astonishing gardens featured on the pages of the Gardens Illustrated magazine that the team love. Lose yourself in the images below.
Discover our favourite covers over the years and don't miss our piece looking back at 30 years of horticulture.
A Scottish garden with a South African twist
In issue 268, our Plant Issue in 2018, we featured Durnamuck a plantsman's garden on a Scottish loch. Will Soos and Sue Pomeroy met while they both working nearby at the National Trust for Scotland’s Inverewe Garden, where Will was responsible for the spectacular walled garden and Sue focused on plant propagation.
John Hoyland said: "There was no design on paper. The garden grew from talking about what was needed, how to deal with the rain and the wind, and how to find space for all the plants Will and Sue had collected. When laying out the garden the surrounding landscape was always the focus, and the plants always lead the eye towards the view...
"My favourite part of the garden is a high mound covered with flaming red and orange Crocosmia. I love it even more when Sue points out stone steps, hidden among the plants, that lead to the top of the mound and a low stone bench around a steel fire pit. It is also a belvedere from which you can see the layout of the garden and admire views across the cultivated area to the meadow beyond and then down to the sea. It is a sight you could never tire of. "
A garden tumbling down a rocky cliff face in Devon
This private garden ran in issue 275, in July 2019 and was designed by Duncan Nuttall who built and planted the entire garden with his colleague Will Cumberlidge. It is on a secluded, craggy headland within a stone’s throw from the sea and is a garden billowing with delicate herbaceous flowers and soft grasses and an amazing view.
Matthew Reese said: "The garden wraps around the house and gently slopes down to a bleached, oak deck and pool. Render walls have been replaced with smart, metal, see-through railings, revealing spectacular views across the bay. Beyond the deck, the garden drops away, tumbling down the cliff face towards the water’s edge.
"Duncan and Will have made a beautiful garden on a difficult site close to the sea. The garden connects seamlessly with the
wider landscape, and is a wonderful exhibition of what is possible when the artist and the gardener collaborate."
A romantic, 13-century gatehouse garden in Cornwall
At Trematon Castle, near Saltash, garden designers Julian and Isabel Bannerman took on the lease at Trematon Castle near Saltash and achieved a startling and romantic transformation. We featured the garden in June 2015 in issue 223.
Anna Pavord said: "The euphorbia is a signature plant at Trematon, particularly in spring, when the lime-green heads sing out against the sober backdrop of stone walls and evergreen oaks. But in summer, echiums (Echium pininana) take over the leading role, rearing in blue spikes up to 3m tall on the slope behind the gatehouse. In this new situation, the Bannermans have seized all the advantages of a Cornish maritime climate. Yet again, they have conjured up a bold, brave and brilliant garden."
Spring bulb border garden outside Amsterdam
Private garden of designer Jacqueline van der Kloet combines perennials with thousands of bulbs in naturalistic combinations and was featured in our April issue in 2016.
Natasha Goodfellow said: "On what was a jungle of brambles, hawthorns and overgrown beech hedges, a sinuous gravel path winds around beds she has planted in her signature naturalistic style with tulips, alliums, camassias, hellebores, geraniums and aquilegias. Hedges of beech, hornbeam and ligustrum provide a lush, green structure and backdrop, while topiary and clipped balls of box, umbrella-pruned Ligustrum delavayanum and Crataegus monogyna, and a beautifully spreading Viburnum plicatum ‘Watanabe’ add a sense of rhythm."
A triumphant English garden on a grand scale
This Cotswold garden was carved out of undulating farmland, with a strong framework of hedges and topiary. It ran in our May 2017 issue and is a treat.
Designer Emma Keswick said: "My favourite garden is Rousham – I have been influenced by the beauty and purity of William Kent’s masterpiece. I like my planting to be billowing and blowsy but the garden must have lots of structure – as that’s what you’ve got to hold your interest in winter."