Pots With a Passport: Cottage Charm for Rented Homes
Renting shouldn't mean giving up the lush, layered look of a cottage garden. With pots, troughs, freestanding obelisks and a bit of forward planning, you can build a garden that moves when you do.
Dressed for Rain: Giving the Water Butt a Place in the Planting Plan
Rain harvesting usually happens behind the shed, out of sight and slightly ashamed of itself. But a water butt is really just another upright object in the garden — and upright objects can be planted around, screened and generally made to earn their keep. Here's how to turn the downpipe into something you'd actually point visitors towards.
Bulbs on the Sill: A Room-by-Room Plan for a Scented Winter
A windowsill can do more than hold a lonely cactus. With paperwhites, amaryllis and prepared hyacinths, it becomes a small, scented garden room that carries you from Christmas to the end of January.
Scent Before the Door Opens: A Winter Fragrance Route Through Porch and Hall
Through a damp British winter the front of the house does more work than the back. Treat the gate, the step, the porch and the hallway as one continuous garden room, planted in sequence so that the welcome begins before you have found your keys.
Six Pots at the Door: Cottage Charm from Bonfire Night to Daffodil Time
Summer bedding is easy; a doorstep that still looks loved in January is a proper bit of gardening. Six containers, layered and frost-proof, that carry the cottage look from November right through to the first daffodils — and move house with you if you do.