Take a tour around this beautiful spring garden

The owner of this spring garden has used symmetry and formal lines to create a garden of allées and vistas. Cherry trees in full ephemeral bloom mark the entrance to the garden from the house.

1/12 Spring blossoms

2/12 Formal designs

Inspired by the gardens at Highrove and Hidcote, this seven-acre plot has been delineated by straight lines to break it up into smaller, more visually manageable areas. In this section, structure is provided by banded urns, box balls and Stipa tenuissima.

3/12 Visionary vistas

Disciplined paths and avenues reach out from the house, creating vistas and viewpoints along the way. Many of these are designed specifically to house a collection of eye-catching sculptures, such as this sphere in stainless steel.

Allium sphere sculpture
Ruth Moilliet

4/12 Swinging sculpture

You are rewarded at every turn with garden sculpture, seasonally exciting planting or a view of the landscape beyond. This contemporary swing hangs from a beech tree in the front garden.

Bubble swing
Myburgh Designs

5/12 Pavilion garden

Neatly symmetrical, the pavilion garden marks the transition from formality to softer landscaping.

6/12 Catch the sun

Glass suncatchers gleam in the borders around the pavilion garden.

Glass suncatchers
neilwilkin.com

7/12 Cherry tree avenue

One of the garden’s seasonal highlights is the cherry tree avenue. The cherry blossom may be fleeting, but it is perhaps all the more precious for offering such a brief moment of pleasure.

8/12 Hornbeam avenue

Along with the cherry tree avenue and pergola walk, structure is provided by an avenue of pleached hornbeam underplanted with box balls and lavenders and linked by obelisks at each end. White benches provide one of the few places to stop and sit in a garden that invites you to keep moving along its many interlinking pathways.

9/12 Monumental views

An obelisk carved out of sandstone by a local craftsman marks the end of the hornbeam avenue at the far end of the garden.

10/12 Pond planting

A formerly silted-up pond has been brought back to life, complete with otters, brown trout and kingfisher, and surrounded by spring bulbs. 

11/12 Streamside walk

A beautifully planted streamside path now links the pond to the formal gardens.

12/12 Tree-top drinks deck

In perfect keeping with the garden’s ethos of walks with rewards, the pond now sports an elevated drinks deck, just visible here amid the mature trees.

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