Best UK – Issue 7 17 March 2026 – Best UK

What is your top gardening tip? I love deadheading and do it all the time – it’s a great way of encouraging more blooms. Roses in particular. I’m brutal. Deadheading means plants have more energy to make more flowers but as well as promoting more blooms, taking off fading and dead flowers makes the plant look neater.

Deadheading couldn’t be easier – use clean, sharp secateurs and cut off the flowerhead above the next flower bud, leaf or side shoot. Does being a top cook help make you a green- figured gardener, do you think? I love and understand cooking. There’s a science and logic to it, and there’s also a science and logic to gardening. With cooking, I always say in the first instance, follow the recipe exactly. After that, you can start doing things a bit differently and it’s the same with gardening.

There are lots of tried and tested rules on how to do or more than five decades, national treasure Dame Mary Berry has been a reassuring presence – sharing her fool-proof recipes, culinary common sense and encyclopaedic knowledge of all things food – both on TV and within the pages of an astonishing almost 80 cookbooks.

Synonymous with baking brilliance and comforting classic dishes, she has inspired generation after generation to don an apron and give it a go. But beyond the ovens and Swapping spatulas for secateurs, Dame Mary Berry credits her love of gardening for why she can still touch her toes at 91… I love getting my hands dirty!

mixing bowls lies another great love. In her latest book, My Gardening Life, Mary turns her attention to the garden – a place she describes as both peaceful sanctuary and creative escape… So, dirty hands, eh? Are we right in presuming you don’t wear gardening gloves? I prefer gardening without whenever possible. I like actually feeling what I’m growing, the produce and the soil.

But sometimes I force myself to put on gloves to protect my hands – I like them to be fairly tight- fitting and have some kind of waterproofing. I avoid gimmicky pairs or ones with flowers on them. With children, the late William, Thomas and Annabel for CELEBRITY things but once you’ve got an understanding of something, you can start experimenting. Just as you can in the kitchen.

I lost my mum, Joanie, last July, at 87, so – while I’m lucky enough to be spending Mother’s Day with my own daughter, Dani – we’re both acutely aware she will be missing and l’ve been reflecting on some of the lessons she taught me: 1 BE BOLD My mother was fun, especially in her younger years. She could be found sporting a variety of wigs (saved time at the hairdressers, apparently) and a leather orange catsuit.

She would jive with the living room door handle, Elvis blaring, loved a party and never kept her opinions to herself. Called to school over my inability to grasp maths, she responded: ‘Does she have friends? She does? Good. Well, if she can’t do maths, she can’t do maths.’

She then left, taking me with her, and telling me life would be fine. It is. 2 HOLD YOUR HEAD UP My father went bankrupt when I was 23. Mum used the Royal mantra of Never Complain, Never Explain. I never heard her say anything about my father, except he was the best man on the planet. Even dementia didn’t phase her. ‘Nope. Can’t remember,’ she’d shrugged. 3 LAUGH LOUDLY Mum’s laugh was contagious ‘Have a word with your face,’ she’d lament until I cracked.

Turns out, laughing releases anti- stress endorphins. Something she never suffered from. So let’s raise a glass on Sunday to ourselves, and our mums – and all the lessons they’ve taught us. • Please let me know your thoughts, [email protected] ontents Life lessons from mum… Inside week THIS 12 Style: Ease into Spring… 20 We’re all talking about 26 Style: Top it off!

30 Beauty: Speedy beauty solutions 34 Diet: Eat yourself happy! 38 Recipes: Bake one for mum! 42 Homes: Set for Spring! 55 Dupe of the week! 64 The best soap update 80 Health: 8 ways to help with your hearing 89 Cash advice to make you better off 92 At home with…

Sophie Ellis-Bextor 94 Gardening for all senses… 99 Your stars 100 Fiction 103 best books 104 Colour therapy 106 Puzzles: Fun at home 112 Travel: An off-season East Sussex beach break 114 Treat yourself for under a tenner Hearst Magazines UK is a trading name of The National Magazine Company Limited (Registered in England number 112955) whose registered offices are at 30 Panton Street, London SW1Y 4AJ.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 702014d5bab97a77
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 29,746,088 bytes (28.368 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 117
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 250.27 minutes
• Total Words: 50,054
• Total Characters: 294,477
• Average Words per Page: 427.81
• Average Characters per Page: 2516.9

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