Garden Answers

Garden Answers is a vibrant and inspiring gardening magazine filled with ingenious design ideas and exciting plant combinations guaranteed to make your garden beautiful.

Meet the Contributors • “This month in the garden I’ll be…”

Welcome

Celebrate BURNISHED FROSTS • The fiery hues of an early winter garden are tempered beautifully by heavy frost

Be inspired by… • Plants, books, events & buys for the month

Mind & body • Use this month to concentrate on you by putting your health and wellbeing first

TACKLING HUGE HEDGEHOG DECLINE

RHS USING AI TO CREATE KNOWLEDGE BANK

Wish list • Edible flowers add beauty, flavour and texture to savoury dishes, cakes and drinks. Start planning now for an edible flower patch

WIN A COBRA CORDLESS CHAINSAW WORTH £119!

What’s on…

J is for January

WELCOME BOOST FOR ENDANGERED VARIETIES

30-minute makes • Make a friend’s day by giving them this gorgeous jar of snowdrops to cheer up what can be really a rather gloomy month!

TALLEST FIR TREE IN THE COUNTRY

Book of the month

Cool, calm and SOPHISTICATED • Sue Fisher puts the quiet elegance of all-white gardens in the spotlight

WHITE PLANTS THAT STOLE THE SHOW

WHITE FLOWERS FOR POTS

PUT THE FIRE INTO WINTER COLOUR & IGNITE YOUR GARDEN • Ade Sellars encourages readers to fill beds, borders and pots with shrubs that will light up your gardens with colour and scent

EVERGREEN DELIGHT

Crossing CONTINENTS • In the Victorian era, the steamship SS Great Britain became a floating garden, transporting rare plant species between Britain and Australia

Brunel’s pioneering SS Great Britain

PLANTS THAT CROSSED THE OCEANS

Versatile & vivacious SKIMMIA • These structural evergreens bring glossy leaves, flowers and berries to the autumn, winter and spring garden, says Sue Fisher

Expert notes

How to grow

OUR PICK OF THE BEST

January • New year, new start! Here’s how to prepare your garden for the best that 2025 can bring to it

RECYCLE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE • If you had a real tree for Christmas, now’s the time to recycle it. Your local council refuse department might take away trees for shredding – or you can repurpose it yourself.

PLANT A NEW BAREROOT ROSE • Repeat-flowering roses are hard to beat for reliable blooms and wafts of sweet scent

Don’t forget…

Sow seeds WITH HEAT • If you have plant seeds from hotter climates, start sowing now for flowers and fruit

Bring together the BEST OF WINTER • Give a golden dogwood a glossy green backdrop, then underplant with snowdrops, libertia and ophiopogon

What’s that bird? • Adrian Thomas offers tips for identifying birds ready for the Big Garden Birdwatch

THE EASY ONES!

WHAT DO THE RESULTS TELL US?

WILDLIFE GARDEN JOBS FOR JANUARY

A love affair to last a lifetime • Over four decades, one couple has transformed rough paddocks and a cattle yard in Yorkshire into a series of magnificent garden rooms

From pristine to idyllic rewilding • Self-sowers seize the spotlight in this relaxed Suffolk garden, where ferns, conifers and fish ponds create a unique sense of place, says Liz Potter

A wild and magical playground • Every day is a voyage of discovery at the National Trust’s Rowallane Garden, one of Northern Ireland’s most beautiful estates

Gift yourself or a friend the joy of gardening

Welcome to my lovely plot • Fancy growing the hottest chilli in the world? Olga has plenty of ideas to keep you busy this month

Things to see in January • Bird watching is fun at this time of year. Many wading birds can be spotted in...