Welcome to Garden Heaven 2017!

It’s here! The 2017 Garden Heaven annual hits shelves on Friday March 24 and is blossoming with gorgeous Irish gardens, tips and jobs for every season, plus lots of great days out. So whether you’re a keen gardener, considering dipping your toe in, or simply share a botanical interest, Garden Heaven is teeming with ideas and painterly planting inspiration. Here’s what to expect:

Behind the Scenes at Airfield with Jane Power

Following the huge restoration of Airfield between 2011 and 2014, the’meandering beds and sculptural designs have finally come into their own. Jane Power takes a summer tour around this urban oasis to discover exactly what it takes to create and maintain this adventurous public garden.

A Bug’s Life

A chance meeting between his son, a garden beetle and a children’s microscope set renowned international photographer Levon Biss on a most unexpected path. Working with Oxford University, Biss photographed a selection?of insects over 800 times each to create a never-before-seen high-resolution image of each bug’s unique armour and Darwinian complexities.

Composting

Illustration by Paula McGloin

Perhaps not the most glamourous of jobs but there is nothing more satisfying than creating the crumbly, clean compost from your household waste that would otherwise be in landfill. It’s also not the sludgy, smelly chore you might imagine it to be, so long as you do it right, as Vandra Costello explains.

Building a Wildlife Pond

With wildlife areas being levelled across the country, either for urban development or farming, there are plenty of ways to help indigenous wildlife in your garden in this issue, from the birds to the bees. One of the simplest ways is introducing a small body of water into your patch of greenery. We talk to the experts on the musts for a wildlife pond.

Winter Garden Brights at Foggy Bottom

Adrian Bloom’s Foggy Bottom winter Garden in Norfolk is a winter wonderland of fire-bright colours, unusual flowers and a surprising array of foliage and shapes. Based around the much-maligned Leylandii conifer, this garden is anything but dull, offering a winter garden that’s guaranteed to inspire.

Garden Heaven 2017 is on shelves from March 24.

Featured illustration and photograph by Abigail Bell of Petal Studio