It is the bank holiday weekend and if the weather is kind to us, it would be nice to be out enjoying the garden. Sloane and Sons Garden Benches can be centre-piece of your garden. It is a place where you can sit and admire the fruits of your hard-labour and long hours spent.  We all desire to improve our garden’s style and we need the hints and tips from the experts and professionals who can guide us.  If, like me, you need a little guidance, here are top sites to visit to find these ideas that can improve your garden’s style.

Royal Horticultural Society

The big daddy of the gardening world is the RHS.  This is a website that has a host of expert professional gardeners who are passionate and energetic advocates for garden style.  When you visit this website, you will be treated to a plant finder, a help and advice section, a gardening calendar – as well as an online shop.  This is a no-nonsense site for the garden lovers of the world – and the first place you should visit to learn how to add style to your grounds.

Great British Gardens

What is great about this site is that it includes images from more than 30 gardens around Britain – including Wisley, Great Dixter and Harewood House – and you can click on the garden and find all the information needed to aspire to the same style.  This is the site where you can aspire to the work of some of greatest garden designers in the country.  The great news is that this site also includes a directory of other gardening websites where you can continue your education.

National Garden Scheme

This is more commonly known as the Yellow Book.  You can go here – type in your postcode – and find open gardens close to your home.  You can then visit the garden and find out how they managed to get the style that deserves such visitors – and raise millions of pounds for charity at the same time.

Lost Gardens of Heligan

This site is a lot more commercial than other sites – but you will enjoy the virtual tours of the different gardens you could visit if you went to St Austell.  The great thing about the website is that you can go slow and look closely at the small details that bring the real style to Heligan.  There is also a timeline – which shows you how the gardens are maintained – and live webcams to keep completely up-to-date on the latest moves the gardeners are making.

Kew

Kew has nineteen science teams that focus in detail on over 70 thousand plants specimens from across the world.  Is there anything else you could possibly need to know about planting and maintenance of plants and trees from anywhere around the globe. You can also have a virtual tour of the treetop walkway – experience the gardens of Kew from your home.

Thompson & Morgan

It is important to know that Thompson & Morgan is a site for selling seeds. This is an eCommerce site aimed at promoting the range of seeds they want you to buy (I love that you can buy garden seeds online) This said, this company was founded over 150 years ago and they have the largest range of seeds for sale – with over 1500 seeds at an incredibly low price.  It might not offer you unbiased tips – but it will offer you a place where you can fulfil your plans for your garden.

BBC Gardening

The BBC is a site aimed at the universal gardener.  Another way of saying this is that the advice can be a little basic and the tone patronising.  However, the advice given is also high quality and representative of one of the widest range of gardeners and their gardens.  The site is informative without being flashy – and it is where you can find the A- Z of almost everything about adding style to your garden.

The Gardening Website

To make your garden sing with the style you desire you need to know where to find the perfect plants.  The Gardening Website is a guide to centres and specialists, furniture suppliers and designers.  You want to find a hammock – come to this site – you want to find the organic chemicals for plant maintenance – come to this site – you want to find bamboo – well there are 22 specialists listed.

Claire Austin

Whenever you read articles online you always hear from Claire Austin –she offers excellent advice and guidance on garden style.  Her website offers clear and to-the-point advance on a range of hardy plans – and Austin provides honest advice – even calling some species a thug.  Sometimes you don’t want the sales pitch – or a well edited list of species you should be looking for.  Sometimes you need as many of the species of bearded and herbaceous peonies – and to be told which one is going to do what you expect.

The Urban Garden

Not all of us have a huge garden in the country where we can create the most amazing border.  Some of us have boxes and pots that need a flourish – this is our garden that needs some style.  This site is brilliant at offering advice to those of us whose hands are not yet blistered and scarred from hours sculpting our landscape.  

I can't say that personally I am the most green fingered person but am lucky enough to know what looks good and having a family who love to be outside, helps to look after the plants and indeed enjoy the garden.

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