And we’re off! The bank holiday is here and the horticultural season is start ing in earnest. Garden centres are filled with temptation, the days are getting longer and the cheery sound of birdsong is tempting us outside.
It has been a funny old year: daffodils started appearing in January, yet blossoms have been slow to show. The nation’s cold frames and greenhouses are at bursting point as we sit out the final frosts — there was even snow last week — but soon, surely, we can liberate our seedlings and tender plants, and then it will be full steam ahead.
To celebrate spring, Home is running a gardening special over the next five weeks, with a wheelbarrowful of the brightest blooms in the business on hand to help you get the most out of your plot, be it large or small. We have the leading gardeners and designers Matthew Wilson, Jo Thompson, Toby Buckland, James Alexander-Sinclair and Andy Sturgeon picking their favourite plants and giving us invaluable advice on how to use them. We’re rounding up the best kit to help you make your own little paradise, as well as glorious gardens to visit; and Laetitia Maklouf is translating arcane horticultural language into everyday English.
We also have memories of gardens past by well-known names, and an insider’s view of some of the loveliest gardens around. And, as the weather warms up, Katrina Burroughs chooses her favourite furniture for outdoor living, and we bring you the best of this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. All you need do is put down your trug, pick up a cushion for the garden bench and dig into our pages.