Soft spot

Spring is heralded with a rich array of rocky gems in this wonderful west Scottish garden

When writer Sheila M Averbuch and her husband moved into their Pencaitland home in East Lothian over 20 years ago, the garden was little more than a flat upper lawn with a steep slope down to the bung

Not every gardener would look at a plot dominated by an impassable slope and think, ‘I can do something with this’, but Ruth Howell is one of them. In 2008, she and husband Peter, both professionals i

In spring, a beautiful eastern redbud tree (Cercis canadensis), its branches clothed from trunk to tip with cerise-purple flowers, steals the show at Sue Martin’s cottage garden in Cranbrook, Kent. It

Purple punctuates the planting: here an acer, verbena and some pinky-purple crinum, or swamp lily, stand out

Butter Wakefield has spread her wings. Renowned for her beautifully detailed city gardens, she now has a five-acre, award-winning design in her portfolio. “I love our London gardens, but being able to