House & Garden Ideas, Tips & Guides

Bellflowers (campanulas) are one of the plants we most associate with old cottage gardens. The blue, pink, or white bells were traditionally grown with roses, hollyhocks, pinks, and foxgloves in summer borders. This chocolate-box image led bellflowers to fall out of fashion, but being such great border plants, they are deservedly enjoying a resurge in popularity.

If you happen to be a town dweller with a small garden, chances are you have looked out of the window at that long, narrow strip of land and wondered how you could improve it with a bit of clever design. It's not the easiest task as an amateur, but the joy of working with a garden designer is that they have a wealth of ideas on hand, not just about pretty planting, but about how to shape a garden to maximise the space at hand. Garden designer Lottie Delamain, who made her first appearance at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2022 with her dye garden, offers virtual consultations for owners who want some inspiration to do it themselves. Here she offers some of her designs as examples of how a small garden can be transformed with a little DIY and elbow grease.

Window boxes and troughs are the perfect way to dress your house, but it’s not as easy as simply planting them up and forgetting about them. Even before you start putting plants into soil, it’s well worth thinking about the practicalities. If you can’t easily and regularly water your plants, for example, consider installing an irrigation system or buying self-watering window boxes (try lechuza.co.uk). Your choice of compost is also important, as many multi-purpose composts are too light and will dry out in a flash, so choose a soil-based compost such as John Innes No. 3 or make your own mix from topsoil and multi-purpose compost.

We’re approaching the hottest few days of the year, and some of the flora in our gardens are beginning to show it – after all, growing plants in an area fully exposed to the hot sun can be challenging unless you choose perennials that simply prefer the heat. Luckily, in this respect you have all sorts of options: “There are plenty of hardy varieties that thrive during the intensity of July and August and into September,” says Kate Karam, editorial director at Monrovia, a national grower of ornamental plants. Once spring gardens fizzle out, low-maintenance perennials planted at the start of summer give a huge burst of colour that won’t fade in the relentless heat. Many have adapted to grow in harsh conditions and are drought-tolerant – and we’re not talking about succulents. Whether the climate is hot and dry or hot and rainy, these plants need just minimal attention and care within reason.

A thoroughly satisfying job when in the right mood, pruning roses has a methodical enjoyment to it, not to mention the cathartic, ruthless thrill cutting out the old. As well as tidying the garden, pruning helps to prevent pests and sickness and stimulates the rose's flower power and vigour, ensuring a joyous summer mass of scent and colour.  

The transitional days from winter to spring and summer to autumn are visually the most inspiring to me. Trying to spot the very first subtle changes that signal the arrival of a new season brings a quiet feeling of rejuvenation and mentally kick-starts my motivation for fresh projects, both indoors and out. Summer, however, is the season when I slow down – or at least try to – to observe and relish the completed projects of seasons past as well as a garden in lush, fresh bloom.

Chelsea is always inspirational but there are some years when the excitement ramps up a notch, and this is one of those years. There are so many superb show gardens to steal ideas from, so many important messages to absorb, that it has been difficult to narrow it down. The plantsmanship is breathtaking, the designs imaginative and the themes thought-provoking, many of the gardens demonstrating how we can garden more sustainably in this era of climate change. From Cleve West’s atmospheric ruined house to Chris Beardshaw’s immaculately planted woodland glade, there is so much at the show to learn from. Here is my pick of the crop.

Propagating is a fun, inexpensive way to produce new plants, either to use in the garden or to give as gifts. Roses are relatively easy to duplicate, and you can never have enough roses, so it's well worth a go.  

Rosa ‘Boscobel’ in a walled garden in east London

Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants co-founder Rosy Hardy on one of the electric buggies used at the Hampshire nursery