Gardens Illustrated - June 2023

Change of tune

In this small Dutch garden, designer Jelle Koot has used a simple rhythm of repeated plants to create a calming, cohesive scheme

Gathering attention

As garden designers start to reappraise lilacs, we take a look at the fascinating French history of the once ubiquitous English garden shrub and re-examine some forgotten cultivars

Nature first

Around the Neoclassical home of Jade and Julian Dunkerton, Urquhart & Hunt has designed a garden that works in harmony with a variety of wildlife

Mixed blessings

In a quiet corner of Essex, designer Stefano Marinaz has replaced a lawn and parking space with a naturalistic garden of mixed planting that offers interest all year

Wild dreams

The mix of varied growing conditions in this ebulliently planted garden in East Sussex helped to forge an ecological vision and approach to gardening that benefits wildlife

PAOLO PEJRONE

The legendary Italian designer, who thinks of himself primarily as a gardener, on the importance of keeping gardens bold and simple, and working with nature in adapting to climate change

Pale and interesting

A sense of tranquillity is the guiding principle in this beautifully realised white garden, with an elegant, pared-back planting palette

GEUM

Offering flowers from late spring into summer, this varied genus of hardy perennials is deservedly growing in popularity

True grit

Swedish plantsman Peter Korn is a pioneer of growing in sand, and his glorious new garden near Malmö is testament to its success

CECILY WITHALL

Kew's first female climbing arborist since the 1980s, Cecily is part of a team that maintains the botanical garden's impressive collection of 12,000 trees