Downtools

W ith Adam Frost

IT’S midsummer, and this is usually the season when gardens are supposed to look their best – brimming with colour, buzzing with life, weed-free and calm, relaxing places for lounging with friends or

Andrew Oldham is busy bringing together vegetables and flowers to make the most of a sloping site

Pick the best palettes from this year’s show to grace your own garden

Accessible gardens around a Cornish retirement village marry a rich horticultural past with modern living

With high summer beckoning, John Lewis-Stempel reflects on the incomparable richness of pond life and the rewards of pausing to peer into the murky depths on a warm June afternoon