A tapestry of pinks

THE garden is now entering its season of vigour and exuberance.

Bringing the past to life

An event hosted by COUNTRY LIFE at WOW!house is one of the highlights of a programme that features some of the biggest names in interior design

This isle is full of wonder

GEOLOGY? A bit like economics, the famously boring science? I confess I suffered the prejudice—agriculture and history being my thing, both of them vital in every sense— but Robert Muir-Wood’s voyage through the past 66 million years of the making of the British landscape has biblical-level drama on almost every other page. Flood, fire, ice… or, perhaps, the formation in rock, sand, mud and lava of these isles is best conceived of as fierce poetry.

Empire protest

Without meaning to issue a clarion call for independence, E. M. Forster perfectly captured the rising tensions of the British Raj. One hundred years later, Matthew Dennison revisits the masterpiece A Passage to India

Hops and dreams

A relative of marijuana, hops were a Teutonic introduction to British brewing culture and gave rise to the original working holiday

Life and sol

The sanctuary of the Balearic Islands has enchanted a multitude of creative minds, from Robert Graves to David Bowie

'Nature is nowhere as great as in its smallest creatures'

Giving himself neck ache from constantly looking upwards, John Lewis-Stempel makes the most of a sunny May day harvesting ‘tree hay’ and marvelling at the myriad wildlife including flies and earwigs–that reside on bark

'Plans are worthless, but planning is everything'

Country houses great and small were indispensable to D-Day preparations, with electricity and sanitation, well-stocked wine cellars, countesses to run the canteens and antique furniture to feed the stoves

The darling buds of May

May Morris shared her father’s passion for flowers, embroidery and Iceland, but was much more than William’s daughter. Influential both as a designer and as a teacher, she championed the rights of workers, particularly women, as Huon Mallalieu reveals

Achilles healed

Once used to comfort the lovelorn or soothe the wounds of Greek heroes, yarrow may now have a new starring role in sustainable agriculture

Spring-fed genius

The garden at Selehurst, West Sussex The home of Mr and Mrs Michael Prideaux The streams that trickle through this woodland valley in the Sussex Weald have enabled the planting of thousands of different trees and flowering shrubs

Stars of the West

Wonderful houses of the West Country are enhanced by characterful owners, from the man who bought the whole of Exmoor to Jane Seymour and Sir Terence Conran

There's no place like home

Riding a train may not be as joyful as clicking a pair of ruby slippers, but there is a kind of magic to the new one-to-two-hour commute, because if you’re only in the office a few days a week, what does a little extra journey time matter, when it increases your buying power? With the flexible-working ethic broadening our horizons, you may find yourself shopping for a bigger, better house, without actually spending more money

'Because it's there': the Mallory and Irvine mystery

It’s now 100 years since George Mallory and Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine disappeared high on Everest; speculation has been rife ever since. Robin Ashcroft takes a broad perspective

Elegant and congruous

In the second of two articles, John Goodall looks at the abbey’s history after the Reformation and its descent in the hands of one family to the present

Under the Cornish sun

From the late 19th century, artists attached themselves like barnacles to Cornwall's shores, forming colonies that changed both art and the lives of local people

The contented garden

George Plumptre returns to the garden of the American artist John Hubbard and finds it basking in comfortable maturity

Safe havens of the West

Wildlife and people alike can thrive in four magnificent estates in Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon

A bit of light relief

Why paler hues are back in favour

A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom

As he prepares for another season on the fly, our correspondent considers what it is about fishing that has long enthralled the great and the good-from Coco Chanel to US presidents, Robert Redford and Eric Clapton

Walking with giants

On a meander around the mighty summits of Dartmoor, Manjit Dhillon recalls tales of warring giants, complex marriages and clotted cream

Romancing the stone

His walls are works of art, but it is Tom Trouton's innovative trees, fruits and even newts that set him apart as a master of dry stone

Claws for celebration

Caught in a pincer movement? Feeling the need to scuttle away? You're not the only one: Helen Scales gets under the shell of the UK's crabbiest crustaceans

Why we love (and hate) the A303

Sometimes, it is the journey we remember, rather than the destination. Julie Harding travels the long, winding-and sometimes frustrating road to the West Country, taking in the sights along the way

A valley of delightful beauty

In the first of two articles, David Robinson considers the medieval abbey at Hartland, beginning with its nebulous origins as an ancient religious site associated with the cult of St Nectan

Put some graphite in your pencil

Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell

Dulce et decorum est

Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday

Heaven is a place on earth

For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee

It's the plants, stupid

I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.

Pretty as a picture

The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market